The biggest part of attachment parenting that I get the most flak for is not spanking my children. It was hard for me to accept that I could raise my children without spanking them, but once I did it was like a light bulb went off in my head. I haven’t spanked my children since late 1999, and sincerely regret that I ever did. I have found other ways to discipline my children and they appreciate it. What seems to surprise people is that they are still well-behaved kids.

One of my major goals in life is to become a gentle mama. I am almost there. After I stopped spanking my kids I continued to yell at them, get in their faces, and in other ways intimidate them. One thing that helps me when I am feeling irritated with my children is to slow. down. my. rate of speech. That helps me to get a grip on my temper as well as reflect on why I am feeling irritated. Most often, it is not even about them. I am really feeling irritated at something or someone else.

Re-direction also helps, sometimes kids can be very insistent on being in your face. If I find myself feeling repeatedly irritated by that, I try to re-direct their attention onto an activity we can do together, because that usually means they are bored and want my attention. As my children got older, I also often strongly encouraged them to find something to do on their own. I feel it’s ok for children to sometimes be bored because it is boredom that sparks their imagination and triggers their creativity.

It is a choice to hit your kids, to yell at your kids, to be mean to your kids. This is something you can control. Once I realized that I chose to yell at my kids, it made me realize I could control whether or not I yelled at my kids. I realized I was not helpless in my response to acting out on their part; I could stop yelling at them.

Something that helps is to treat your children as you would anyone else. Would you hit your husband, a co-worker, or a friend who was learning how to do something and did it wrong? Would you yell at a friend or a co-worker for getting on your nerves? Probably not, because most people won’t put up with a spouse that hits them or a friend who yells at them and most jobs will fire someone who yells at their co-workers. Children have no such protection; they have to put up with it. It may seem to you like there are no negative consequences for yelling at them. But there are…it negatively affects them and hurts them deep inside and affects their whole life. Think about that, and make a sincere effort not to yell at them. It’s a bad habit to break but gets easier each time. Both you and your children will be better for it, and it contributes to having a safe and peaceful home.

You know what else…it took me a while to understand that when my kids were asking me Why? Why? Why? when I told them to do something they weren’t being smart-alecky; they really wanted to know. This still frustrates me sometimes and I will still sometimes snap Don’t question me! Just do as I say! but I try to take a deep breath and calmly answer their questions. Quite often they just want a simple explanation, but because I am grown and it seems so simple to me I feel they are being willfully defiant by questioning me. It helps to remind myself that what is obvious to me may not be obvious at all to an 8 year old or 11 year old, or even a teenager like my daughter.

My cutting back on yelling has made such a difference in their lives. I have noticed that they interact with each other differently too, like they are more patient with each other and less likely to yell and/or get frustrated with each other. When my kids tell me, Mommy I like your nice mama voice it warms my heart and makes me feel like I am truly a good mother.

How do you feel about this? Is there ever a time to be aggressive with a child? and by aggressive I mean hitting or spanking in any way, snatching or jerking them in any way, yelling and/or screaming, talking to them in a mean or hostile way, making mean or scary faces, getting all in their face i.e intimidating them by getting all in their body space, emotionally isolating them by not speaking to them for infractions…let me see what else. Throwing things at them, calling them names, cursing at or around them, putting them down. Disregarding their need for positive attention, pointing out their ‘flaws’ when other people praise them. I am sure there are more examples of aggressive behavior toward children…is there ever any time when it is necessary and/or ok to behave toward a child in any of these ways?

Moved back from now defunct Ultra Mama blog, merging content Let’s talk about this again! I turned comments back on.

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