How To Stop Yelling At Your Kids

You're listening to the Empowering Working Moms podcast episode number 59. Hello there. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I'm thrilled to have you. To my current and old listeners, I am so glad to have you here.

If you're new to my podcast, welcome, welcome. I am a physician and a mom of two small children. And I do this work to help women like yourself who have serious careers and are managing it all, right, and you might be exhausted.

A fun thing I have to tell is one of my clients, Samar, a mother of three young kids and a physician as well, she was telling me that before coaching with me, she was struggling to keep her house and her marriage together while heading into a clinical depression. And imagine how tough that is, and you might be able to even relate.

But through coaching with me, she found the tools that she needed to manage stressful situations. She said when stress and anxiety arise, "I am no longer spiraling into shame, blame or sadness anymore. But I know I am in control, and I have the confidence to manage them. My relationship with my husband is much better. I am balanced and grounded and a better mom and doctor."

And I love hearing this feedback from clients of mine. Knowing that they're getting out of that exhaustion, out of the burnout and truly finding peace of mind and enjoying their lives. The work we're doing inside my coaching program is really not time intensive. And clients like Sumir are beyond burnout and really creating the life they want. So if it's possible for Sumir and my clients, it is possible for you. To learn more join my free on demand masterclass to ending burnout and exhaustion and finally getting your peace of mind back.

So today's episode I'm doing because I know this is something that my clients struggle with, and you probably are struggling with too. And that is yelling at kids, how do I stop yelling at my kids. And I was actually inspired for this episode because I was working a lot and I found myself a bit cranky and a bit tired. And then I even was sick. And I woke up in the middle of the night with a really bad headache, which I never get. And my five year old was pulling normal five year old antics. And I truly felt like yelling, but I did not. But I did feel like it.

So that really inspired me to give you the material in this episode. Now remember, I've been doing this work for a really long time. So I was able to use my own mindfulness tools and methods, some of which I will teach you in this episode today, to really keep myself from yelling and to keep myself grounded. But I could feel how irritable I was from my lack of sleep. And when I take call, and I still take call in my medical practice, I take phone calls at night. So I'm sleep deprived. And I have found that my two year old and five year old are also waking up more at night as well. So I have a lot more interrupted sleep. And that, of course creates a bit of crankiness, right.

But here's the bottom line, we're human, and we're not perfect. And that means that we make mistakes. And sometimes that includes behaving in a way that can be out of integrity with who we want to be. And we get to give ourselves compassion for that. So I want to talk about giving ourselves compassion and giving ourselves grace. Today's tips and formulas are not going to mean that you never ever, ever yell again. But they are going to help a lot with helping you cultivate peace of mind, making you feel grounded when you feel like yelling at your kids. But I guess this could be used and applied to when you feel like yelling in general.

So here are tips to keep from yelling at your kids. First, I'm going to list the things that you can do ahead of time, or ahead of tiring and annoying moments when your patience is tested. Then I will get into more practical tools that you can use in the actual moments of the annoyances or when your patience is being tested. So ahead of time, take care of yourself. And this is work you can do in general.

Also this includes self care, and I normally don't go on and on about self care because it is pushed a lot in self help and in coaching and in my opinion, it is not the end all be all for wellness. But if you do not care for yourself and you do not take time for yourself, then you really may resent the irritating things that your kids might be doing.

So keep that in mind. And part of this is adequate sleep, and definitely some semblance of alone time and or connection time with your partner if you have a partner, otherwise focus on yourself, right? Cultivating joy of some sort, eating healthfully, limiting alcohol intake, and having some sort of a morning routine even if it's 5 to 10 minutes of savoring your morning cup of coffee or being alone, a quick meditation, whatever makes you happy in the morning. Get your foot started on the right day, you could set an intention for the day. So these are examples of what you can do ahead of time and how you can care for yourself.

Now, in the actual moment, when you feel irritated, let's say your kids won't go to bed on time, they won't get ready in the morning, they're refusing to brush their teeth, here's something you can do in that moment. First, ask yourself why you are irritable. Then give yourself compassion, for being irritable, and know that it's okay to feel irritable. I'm gonna give an example of this.

So the other day when my son was dancing around the hall refusing to brush his teeth, I was annoyed. And I knew I was annoyed, because I did not want to be in the long line for camp. Now, mind you, this is a very nice camp he goes to and it starts at 9am. But you cannot bring kids before that time because they charge you extra and they're already charging enough. So there's a whole time shebang for that. And if you get there closer to nine, then there's a massive line, it feels like it takes forever. Meanwhile, my daughter's daycare slash school starts at 9am also. So it's just this annoying kind of dance that's going on in the summertime. So it just takes extra time. And I did not want to be late for work, of course, and all this rigmarole.

So given all that you can imagine, I was getting annoyed when he was refusing to brush his teeth, dilly dallying. But what kept me grounded in that moment, what kept me from feeling stressed, what kept me from getting super agitated, even though I was sleep deprived, mind you. I realized that what I was worried about was being late, what I was worried about was waiting in line, maybe my daughter being late to daycare, and in the scheme of things, those things really don't matter.

So as he prolonged the morning routine ready time, I just chose to let it go. So if you can practice something like this, where you zoom out and see how important something really is. Why are you getting annoyed? And is it really worth it? And notice how much stress and energy you may be creating for yourself and intentionally choose whether or not you want to create that stress for yourself in any given moment, including moments like these.

Another tip is to realize that the moment will pass and I talk about this a lot. But this is so helpful in all storms of life, be it big or small. This too shall pass. And when you know that, it's really something that will help you zoom out and not get so upset in the actual moment. Realizing that unpleasant times, big or small, they're not going to last forever.

So an example of this was I went through the Starbucks line for food for myself. And this was in the drop off morning time. And I did not get my son a croissant because he was misbehaving in the morning, he wasn't following the routine, and I did actually get him Starbucks only a few days prior. And while we're waiting in this line, and it's taking a long time, he would not stop asking me why he couldn't have a croissant. Why, but why? And I would explain why, you know you didn't follow the morning routine, you were misbehaving, and that is why. And then eventually I just told him that I was no longer going to answer this question. I had already answered it multiple times. But he was being repetitive.

And I was already irritable because I was sleep deprived and I felt a little rushed. And I reminded myself that him asking me about the croissant was not going to last forever. And that moment was going to pass, though it feels like forever when you're in that time. I know that because I too have been there. But it actually does not last forever. So that's just something to remember that though these unpleasant moments or waiting in line or whatever it is, or repetitive questions from children can't take no for an answer. It's irritating, but it will pass. And that really can help just ease the pain of having a listen to the same thing over and over again. So that's that tip.

Next tip is give yourself a time out to collect yourself, because it's amazing how quickly we can actually shift gears or bounce back from a certain feeling. So you can even say to your children, I need a timeout right now to just collect my thoughts. I need a breather. And it's a great way of modeling to them how to cope with negative feelings or thoughts, right.

My next tip is to express yourself and actually say how you feel in the given moment. So if your kids are acting up, you can say I feel frustrated. I feel like yelling. I'm going to focus on my breath and belly breathe to calm myself, to really center myself. And I will actually do this and I will breathe and they can see me doing it. And not only does it help me center and ground myself, but it also is a great example for them of a coping skill for when you're feeling frustrated.

Another tactic I use is repeating a phrase over and over again until it gets done instead of yelling. So with the brushing teeth, I might want to scream, brush your teeth, right. That's an easier way to go about things. But instead of that, I will just say, brush your teeth, brush your teeth, please brush your teeth, please brush your teeth, please. And that's kind of boring, because it's not getting a rise.

The other thing about us yelling that you have to remember, especially for younger kids, is that it kind of shows that they're getting a rise out of us, it shows that we're responding, they're getting the attention. So the more we can be matter of fact, and just say brush your teeth, brush your teeth as if you don't care. All the more that they're not going to be so invested in fighting the force of you know, the activity of daily living, or ADLs, as we call it in medicine, when we're assessing elderly folks on how well they can take care of themselves. I digress. But yeah, when they're avoiding just regular things that just need to be done non negotiables, like teeth brushing.

Next technique, listen up to this one. So I will really use my mind body connection to ground myself. So also when I was sitting in the drive through with my son, and that was the same Starbucks scenario, another technique I used was feeling my body. I noticed my body sitting on the seat of the car. And I really focused on my breath. And as I was able to notice my body, my feet on the ground, the weight of my body, and focusing on my breath, and sometimes I will just count my breaths. And that helps me get out of my head and into my body.

And what this does is it takes our focus away from the irritating situation, and gives us distance from that irritated feeling, or the thoughts that we have that are creating that feeling. So we can not be so married to our thoughts and feelings. And then we can really help ourselves get distance from what feels like a stressful situation. And if you really are able to do this, practice this and tune into your breath in your body, you can learn to sit with the unpleasantness, notice where it is in your body and not play into it as much. And even let it go. Magical, right?

Well, this tool, it really helps us. And it helps us even decrease more suffering when we're already tired or feeling irritable. So in that scenario, for example, I was already feeling tired. I was already irritable because I hadn't slept well. And then, you know, my son is repetitively asking me the same question. He can't take no for an answer. And I have a choice to get further stressed in that situation, or ground myself and observe how I feel irritated or irritable. And then really breathe, let it go and realize that it's a temporary situation.

The other thing I will say is if you try all of these things, or maybe in the moment you forget, and you don't try and you end up yelling at your kid or kids, give yourself compassion, forgive yourself and realize that you're not perfect. And it's okay to not be perfect, because that's just impossible anyway, because this is the human experience and to be human is to err, to err is to be human. And as you forgive yourself, apologize to your child too. And you can say, hey, I'm sorry for yelling, I was feeling irritable, and I shouldn't have yelled and I'm sorry.

And that way they can see that you're not perfect and that they have permission to be imperfect. They have permission to be human, and much more comfortable being not perfect than we are. And maybe if we show this example our kids won't grow up to be perfectionists like we are. So try any and all these tips. Let me know how it goes.

You can find me @DoctorPrianca on Instagram.  To have a streamlined process to find confidence, get clarity, make decisions and have inner peace to finally end burnout while having a positive ripple effect on your kids, book a call with me to get started on this work. PriancaNaikMDcoaching.as.me. You can be out of exhaustion and burnout in 90 days or less. Thank you so much for tuning in and I will talk to you next week.