Photo courtesy of Molly Brennan

One of my absolute worst attributes as a parent is my occasional inability to control my temper. I’m not a raging lunatic, but I do tend to yell. I’ve promised myself over and over again that I’m not going to lose my cool, that I’ll give myself a time out, that I’ll count to ten, take deep breaths. But within days of every resolution I find myself yelling again.

It actually surprises me that I’m a yeller, it’s not something I would ever have expected of myself as a parent, and it’s certainly not something I’m proud of. But there it is.

When I was pregnant with my first child, a friend was visiting with her then two-year-old daughter. She casually mentioned that she and her husband were working really hard on not yelling, and I was absolutely horrified. Charlie and I lay in bed that night whispering about how awful that was, and imagining how anyone could ever yell at a two-year old, a baby really.

The naïveté is almost as embarrassing as admitting how often I resort to yelling.

To give myself a little bit of credit, I don’t think I ever once raised my voice with Eliza until she went from being an only child to being one of three. But when the boys came along the stress level just ratcheted up to an almost unbearable degree, and by the time they were old enough to misbehave, I was a confirmed yeller. I’m deeply ashamed of this terrible habit, and rarely talk about it with friends. (Blogs, as it turns out, are incredible repositories for confessions.)

Knowing that I’m not alone helps a little. A New York Times article last year called “Yelling is the New Spanking” was an eye-opening view onto the secret world of stressed-out parents who, without spanking, don’t appear to have much in their arsenal when it comes to exercising some discipline. The article profiled a range of parents who sheepishly admitted that they yelled at their children, sometimes a lot.

The problem with yelling is, of course, that it doesn’t work. Each of my kids has a different reaction to my yelling, and unfortunately, none of them is immediately stopping whatever it is they are doing that has elicited the shouting. As soon as I even take on a harsh tone, Eliza covers her ears in this highly dramatic actress-in-training maneuver and starts whimpering. Silas immediately bursts into uncontrollable sobbing that sometimes takes ten or more minutes to resolve. And Finn seems to dig even more stubbornly into whatever he’s doing.

So why do I do it? I think it has a lot to do with the simple fact that I don’t really know what else to do. I’ve tried all of the usual techniques, including time outs, the gold standard of modern parenting’s discipline strategies.

The idea of a time out is that by removing a child from the situation in which they are misbehaving and isolating them for a minute or more you will give them time to think about what they have done, gather themselves together, and then come back to the situation with a new attitude. Sounds logical, right?

Let’s consider a typical scenario: It’s time to leave the house for school. Finn refuses to put on his shoes, which he is more than capable of doing. I have to do 10,000 other things to get out of the door and two other kids need my attention for one thing or another, so I tell him for a second time to put on his shoes. He flatly refuses. I repeat, telling him now for the third time, and add the warning, “Finn, if you don’t put on your shoes right now you’re going to have to go to time out.” He refuses.

I’m really annoyed now, so I march over, grab his hand, and start moving him toward the designated time out area, which is the bottom step of the staircase. He instantly goes ballistic, screaming and crying, flailing around and kicking me on the shins as I drag him to the stairs. When I finally get him there, he is fully hysterical and will not stay unless I physically restrain him. So we do this for a minute or two, by which point we are both utterly frazzled, his shoes still aren’t on, and we’re late for school.

I yell when I’m at my wits’ end, and the truth of my life is that that happens frequently. Patience is unfortunately not one of my personal virtues to begin with, and having three children at the same developmental stage—demanding autonomy without actually being able to do much for themselves—frequently sends me over the edge.

Sometimes it’s actually a volume and space issue. This evening I was in the bathroom with Silas, helping him use the toilet, and the other two were in the room talking so loud that I couldn’t hear what Silas was saying, and crowding me up against the toilet so that I was basically hovering over the bowl. I literally felt like a wild animal trapped in a corner, and when Finn started shrieking at top volume directly in my ear because Eliza pushed him, I lost it and screamed at everyone to get out of the bathroom, at which point all three started crying hysterically. Incredibly effective, no?

I know that yelling is not healthy. I know that it’s ineffective. And I know that there are many other, much more positive ways to get my kids to do what I need them to do. But at the same time as I’m genuinely trying to find new discipline techniques, I’m also trying to be forgiving of myself when I make mistakes. I asked my stepmother’s mother, a woman I admire greatly, about what she thinks makes great kids. She told me that she thinks parenting is a “try-to-do-the-best-you-can kind of endeavor.” I doubt that she did much yelling, but I’m sure she made mistakes of her own. So I’ve resolved to strive to be the most patient, nurturing, and positive parent I can be. And when I don’t hit the mark, I’m going to realize what I could do better and let it go.

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