Thursday, October 22, 2009

"Yelling Is the New Spanking,"

So says Amy McCready, the founder of Positive Parenting Solutions.

“This is so the issue right now. As parents understand that it’s not socially acceptable to spank children, they are at a loss for what they can do. They resort to reminding, nagging, timeout, counting 1-2-3 and quickly realize that those strategies don’t work to change behavior. In the absence of tools that really work, they feel frustrated and angry and raise their voice. They feel guilty afterward, and the whole cycle begins again.”

We've been told that spanking is abusive. Is yelling abusive? And if so, how do you get two kids to stop picking, poking and irritating each other in the backseat of the car without yelling at them?