“Oh my gosh! Stop touching things! Stop! Just Stop!”
That was me, yesterday, in the public bathroom with my boys. They are 2 and 5 and they just had the need to touch every grimy surface in our park’s bathroom.
With every touch of the toilet paper holder or walls, shivers went down my back. I could sense the invisible germs attaching themselves to their hands.
I wanted to scream “JUST DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING!!!”
As soon as I was able to push us out of the germ infested place, and hand sanitizer was quickly rubbed on their hands, the guilt started to take over. I realized that I totally lost my cool over something really small.
So, I went over to my Stop Yelling Group and asked them “What’s the most ridiculous reason why you have yelled at your kids?”
The responses were hilariously wonderful:
- For chewing loudly…no joke. I flipped out over him chewing Cheetos too loud
- “‘Hashtag Don’t be a Hater’ is not an appropriate way to talk to your mother.”
- Shames me to say – but dropping candy canes – they wanted to bring candy canes to their dance teacher and they kept dropping them on the ground.
- “No! Cereal does not go in your shoes!”
- Smacking his lips together after every word then use “like” every 3 seconds
- “Stop licking the baby”
- When I’m trying to reverse the car, I’m so bad at it !!
- Being a human jungle gym can only last so long before I just SNAP.
- My biggest pet peeve is my son messing up my made bed, so silly but I get so angry!
- We have a pet pig. I have roared “Stop riding the pig” about 100 times today.
- “Please wait until your COMPLETELY finished peeing before getting off the toilet!!!”
- “Please stop asking me to look at things, I’m DRIVING!”
- Waiting…waiting…waiting for Mr 2 to hurry up and poo.
- They do nothing wrong but be kids and if they get loud I get yelly. Really I have no rhyme or reason.
ALL parents get angry and frustrated at our kids, even over small things, and sometimes we yell.
We yell for lots of different reasons.
We yell because we worry.
We yell because our kids behavior triggers our anger.
We yell because we get sensory overload (too much touching/noise)
We yell because we are bored, tired, overwhelmed, stressed, etc.
We yell because we just can’t do it all.
We yell for so many reasons, I can’t even begin to name them all.
Hey, anger happens. Anger is a normal, human emotion that we all feel. And unfortunately, as parents, we can sometimes take our anger out on our kids.
Sometimes it’s because we are maxed out, other times it’s just that their behaviors are annoying and irritating.
If you’re tired of yelling over ridiculous things, then here’s two resources that can help.
50 Calm Down Tips
This is a FREE handout that has 50 proven tips that can help you find calm and not yell when your kids drive you bonkers.
I took what I know as a Mental Health Therapist and put all my best tips into one handout just for you!
Some of them are fun: “have a tickle fight” or “sing a sound loudly”
Others are more relaxing: “Put on calming music” or “make a calm down jar”
Fill this out to get your copy sent straight to your email!
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Mama’s Anger Management
This is my 4 week eCourse that’s built just for parents who want to stop the yelling and build happier homes with their children.
This course has helped hundreds of women so far. One MAM Alum has this to say:
“This course allowed me to see all the amazing things I am doing as a mother while enabling me to take charge of my anger and yelling in a positive way with the support of other great moms just like me.”
It would cost you hundreds of dollars for a counselor or Anger Management class, but you still wouldn’t get the daily support you get from this course and the private support group.
This course is guilt-free, judgement-free, and built just for busy parents like you, and I promise that it will transform your life.
With these tools, I know that you won’t be yelling at such ridiculous things anymore.
Yes! I have yelled just about all of those!
P.S. I did have to giggle at the typo in the first sentence (although it was a fitting typo) 😉
Bwahaha! Thank you, all fixed.
I recently have been following the Positive Parenting Toddlers sites out there (I think this is how I stumbled upon yours??). I have been trying desperately to go back to my easy going, unflappable self, but seriously, something about a two and half year old insisting on licking, every object on this planet unravels me more quickly than anything I have ever known in my existence. No matter how many times I rant how “yucky” and “gross” licking the pavement or line chains at Disneyland is (after the measles outbreak mind you….), licking a window at a restaurant, a cart in the grocery store, oh my lord, this list goes on and on. I have even uttered “please stop licking the sand.” Then I try to tell myself, well, you know, the kid is rarely ever sick, so maybe this is building her immune system?! Then I get angry sometimes because I see other 18 month old kids who lick nothing. One friend-ish person informed me neither of her kids ever put anything in their mouths as toddlers. Say wha??? My kid drinks the damn bath water ten seconds after she’s quite obviously peed in it. My husband and I try everything to get it to stop, but AGHHHH.
So, yeah, back to my Positive Parenting mention… I finally had a breakthrough moment a few weeks ago, when my brother came to visit, and my spawn was pretending to be a puppy that day. She was trying to lick the tops of our feet as we all sat at the dinner table. My husband and I used the distract techniques to get her away from licking our feet, all while pleasantly stating it wasn’t nice to do that, even if she was a puppy. I found out a few days later from my mom, that my brother had told her I should have spanked my daughter and he would have stopped my daughter abruptly. Obviously, we are a no spanking household, as we don’t see it as a long term effective solution. I was very upset that this was even brought up to my mom, because a. we don’t spank b. my daughter is only two c. she was being imaginative, WHY would I punish imagination, no matter how disgusting it is?!?
Love the anger management tips you supplied, definitely will check out the class and wanted to put out there that my kid licks everything, so be thankful the boys were only touching with hands that could be sanitized! I’m not so sure how it would go if I squeezed hand sanitizer on my kid’s tongue ;P
Have you discussed all of the licking with your pediatrician? It sounds as if there might be some sensory issues going on-if so, the sooner they are addressed, the happier everyone will be. Of course, your daughter might also just be a really curious/imaginative kid :).
It’s bad… but I had to leave the washroom when my daughter insisted for the first time that she wanted to sit on the public toilet seat rather than be held hovering above it. I could not stand there and watch her touch something so germ-infested… ugh, yup, there are certain times when I just have to walk away and pretend it’s not happening if I’m going to be sane!
Hello
I’m a gramma
But my daughter has a 2 yr old son n just recently had a baby girl on May 30th and I’m finding that he has been really emotional and yells screams could this be from him havin a new sibling ?