YELL (if you have to)! And then, reflect and apologize.

I heartily laughed after seeing this video. There are so many topics these moms raised about how many pressures there are on mothers in particular these days to "get the job done." The list is endless! One topic that was recurrent was that of yelling. This notion has spread like wildfire that "bad mothers" yell. Now, my close friends and family members would not put me in the category of "yeller" but by golly, there are some days when I have full-on yelled at my children. I regret it every time and wish I hadn't done it but at the end of the day, yelling or not, I am human. In my conversations with dear friends, we came to the conclusion that such promotions of not being a yeller only bolstered the guilt felt by nearly every mother each time they started to get angry and their voice notched up on the decibel chart. Getting angry is a very normal human reaction. I applaud parents who strive to not yell (and of course it is never OK to verbally abuse children, yelling or not). I even use some tips to channel the anger in a more adaptable way! But, I also believe in showing my children my humanness and repairing any icky feelings afterwards, also showing the power of kindness and compassion through a sincere apology. Yelling can be scary to children, no doubt about it. But, what is scarier is when those children grow up and feel the urge to yell at their own child (when stress builds as it inevitably does when raising children) and believe something is very wrong with them. When really, they are human too.