Hope for the Mom Who Yells

This past week, I wrote this post about an incident I witnessed in the grocery store in which a mother yelled at her child because he touched a box of cereal. The whole scene grieved me deeply. I too have yelled at my kids or said things I shouldn’t have said.

Immediately after I published the post, I began receiving e-mail messages and comments saying, “I am that mother. Help me.”

I was amazed at the honesty in those messages, and the common threads that ran through them. Each mother felt guilty, helpless, overwhelmed, ashamed, and at a loss as to how to stop the cycle of yelling in her home.

I promised to put together a list and some resources to help. If you would like to be the person who stops the cycle of verbal abuse in your home, please read on for some practical ways to make a start.

25 Tips for Moms Who Yell

Focus on your heart.

The Bible tells us, “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45) Ugly words indicate a heart in need of repair.

Spend time in God’s Word every single day, mending your heart. Fill it with good things so good things flow out of your mouth. If possible, get up before your children so you have time to read and meditate without distraction.

Memorize (and believe!) 2 Peter 1:3.

This verse says, “His divine power [the same power that raised Christ from the dead!] has given us everything we need for life and godliness.”

This includes the ability to keep from yelling at our children. When you are tempted to yell at your children, ask yourself, “What resource does God have available to me right now that I’m failing to use?”

Confess the truth of your condition out loud.

Say, “I am a mom who yells at her children.”

Satan loves to keep us cowering in the dark. Do not give him the power of guilt and shame. Bring your sin into the light where God can begin to heal you and restore your relationships with your children.

Repent.

Gather your children around you and tell them you are sorry. Tell them you have been wrong. Perhaps you have trained them to speak ugly words back to you. Repent of the fact that you have been actively passing your sin on to them.

Pray.

Pray out loud and with your children, if possible, so they can hear you interceding for yourself and for your family before God. Any time you are tempted to yell, stop and pray. Be honest about it. Say, “Kids, I am really tempted to yell right now so I’m going to stop and pray for God’s strength.” You will be amazed at what that transparency does for your relationship with God and your children.

Be legalistic.

You heard me. Don’t give yourself wiggle-room. Don’t accept excuses from yourself. If you mess up and yell, repent, but don’t justify yourself or downplay your actions. Own them, and strive to do better the next day, with God’s help.

Seek accountability.

Find at least one adult with whom you can share your struggle. If you are married to a good and godly man, allow him to shepherd you in this area. If not, seek out your mother, sister, pastor, godly friend—anyone who has the spiritual discernment to help you deal with your sin.

Check-in daily.

Do not wait for your accountability partner to ask you how things are going. It is not his job to manage this sin for you, nor should you use his lack of follow-up as an excuse to cower in the shadows again. You brought this sin into the light. Keep it there. Make it a habit to tell your accountability partner about your progress before he asks.

Keep short accounts.

At the end of each day, do a self-analysis. Repent when you need to repent, and praise God for any growth you see.

Seek outside evaluation.

Sometimes, we need to hear ourselves the way others hear us. Your kids can help with the instant replay. Ask them, “How did I do today? Did you hear me sounding angry?” Getting their feedback will help you maintain an honest perspective on yourself. Asking them for it will help them feel safe with you as you work through your struggle.

Learn your triggers.

Become a student of yourself. What makes you want to yell?

Take note of times of day, dietary triggers (I feel more emotionally unstable when I eat sugar, for example), repeating circumstances (PMS, anyone?), or any other patterns in your life that have led up to you losing it in the past or present. Keeping track of these things can help you be prepared to face or avoid them.

If you notice that you yell when it’s time to get the kids ready to leave the house, plan for it. Get up a little earlier, put clothes out, have the oatmeal in the crock pot the night before, actually dress the dawdling child yourself, even if he’s in fourth grade, for heaven’s sake–do whatever it takes to keep your cool.

Always give the person in the room priority (FYI: children are people).

This means your child gets priority over Facebook, the text conversation you’re having, or even the phone that’s ringing. You will be less frustrated with your child if he does not have to come up with ways to make himself your priority.

Look at your child when he talks to you.

Put down your phone, close your screen, and give him your full attention. Do not think, “My child is interrupting me.” Think, “This (other less-important thing ) is interrupting my child.”

Sometimes, you will be in the middle of something that cannot be paused while your child talks. In that case, ask your child to wait but honor her waiting by getting to a stopping point as soon as possible.

Often, we tell our children to wait but then forget about them. We do not stop our task as soon as possible, or we do not stop at all and only half-listen while they speak. Then we become frustrated when our children continue to pester and annoy because they never really felt heard and we didn’t really listen.

Let them feel heard first, and you will be less frustrated later.

Say please, and say it first.

Putting please at the beginning of any demand turns it into a request, and requests are much harder to yell and much more pleasant to hear. Which would you rather hear? Come here! or, Please come here.

Your children are no different. Please sounds nicer to them, too.

A good rule of thumb is to speak to your children with the same respect and courtesy you would speak to any adult. If you wouldn’t say it to your neighbor, don’t say it to your child.

Train your children.

Giving your children healthy boundaries and realistic rules and then consistently enforcing them is one of the ways you raise successful adults. It’s also one of the ways you rear enjoyable children.

If your children have habits or behaviors that irritate or frustrate you, consider whether or not those behaviors can be altered. Some behaviors cannot, based on the child’s ability and/or nature, but many can. Accept the quirks you can’t change and lovingly work on the ones you can.

Do not use yelling in place of necessary discipline.

This one’s in here just for me. I am most tempted to yell when I am avoiding disciplining a child like I know I should. I warn. I warn some more. I lecture. But too often, I do not actually dole out the consequences the child has earned for the behavior he has chosen until I am at the point of frustration.

That’s too late.

In order to avoid yelling, I need to discipline my children immediately and dispassionately whenever it is necessary. If I am lazy about it, or if I warn and wait, I am tempting myself to yell. All of that can be avoided if I just parent like I’m supposed to the first time.

Carry your words with your feet, not with your volume.

In other words, whenever possible, go to your child and speak to him in a reasonable tone. Do not shout out blanket threats and commands just because you do not want to get up and take care of a situation, or because you don’t want to take the time to figure out what is actually going on. That’s lazy parenting, and in the end, it will cost you a close relationship with your child.

Similarly, use your hands to redirect behaviors instead of your mouth.

This works especially well with little ones. Rather than yelling, “Put that down! Put that down! I said, ‘Put that down!’” go and remove the object from the child’s hands. It really is that simple.

Another great diffuser is a hug. When you feel like yelling, stop and hug your child. Hold on to that kid until you both remember that you’re not enemies.

Dwell on the good.

Think about all the great things about your child. Write them down and slip a note under your child’s door. Speak them out loud, and let your child eavesdrop. Or, say them around the dinner table and tell them to your husband when he first walks in the door instead of vomiting complaints on him. Reminding yourself of your child’s strengths will help you be less frustrated with her weaknesses.

Forgive.

Let go of the sins your child does against you. Ultimately, they are not sins against you at all, but against God. There is no need to keep a record of his wrongs, and even less reason to spit them back out at the end of the day. All this does is feed the anger and resentment that results in yelling. You can feel that anger start to build as soon as you begin to repeat your child’s offenses, can’t you?

Forgive. Then forget.

Let your children be children.

Do not hold your children to expectations they cannot achieve. They will be a little wiggly in church. They will not whisper. They will put fingers in their noses. They will touch all the things. They’re kids, and that kid-ness doesn’t reflect badly on you. How you respond to it does.

If you’re not sure if your expectations for your children are too high or too low, talk to other parents. Observe other children and compare them to your own, being sure to account for things like handicaps and abilities. Adjust your expectations accordingly, and if you err, err on the side of grace.

Plug in to a community.

Parenting is hard. It can also be isolating, especially if you have a difficult or strong-willed child. If you find yourself losing it with your kids, it is very important that you nurture relationships with people who can understand and encourage you. Go to church, join a small group, find a parenting group, or follow an online support group like The Orange Rhino.

Fill your tank.

It’s amazing what a little rest can do. Don’t wait until you’re totally depleted to recharge. Work with your spouse to find time for yourself, or trade a few hours of childcare with another parent.

If you’re a single parent, don’t underestimate the power of a movie night! Put a movie in for the kids and take the time to do something that refreshes you. Dream a little. Play. Find the you that has gotten lost in the dirty laundry pile. Doing some things just for you will help to dissolve some of the anger and frustration that can build up in the child-rearing years.

Get resources.

Besides the Orange Rhino community, which is not a faith-based resource, check out these two great books written by women I respect greatly. Both of these are fantastic reads for moms who struggle with the very exhausting aspects of parenting.

The first is Unglued by Lysa TerKeurst. The subtitle says it all: Making Wise Choices in the Midst of Raw Emotions.

The second is Desperate by Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson. Desperate is how we feel some days when parenting is hard, isn’t it? These women get it, and their books can help encourage you when you are at your wit’s end.

*Disclosure: both of the links above are affiliate links, although I certainly did not recommend them for that reason.

Finally, don’t give up.

It can be agonizing and difficult to overcome our sinful tendencies, but it is so worth it. I am reminded often that my children do not need to learn how to be perfect. They need to learn how to fail. They will never be perfect, but they will fail over and over again throughout their lives. They need me to demonstrate how a woman of God deals with her imperfections because they are imperfect too, and they will spend their lives struggling with sin just as I have. They need to see my transparency, my repentance, and my growth in Christ. They need to see me get back up and try again because they will need to do the same.

When you fail, don’t give up. Just get up, and try again.

Together, we can overcome this sin in Christ Jesus. If you have anything to add to the list, please include it in the comments below so we can all learn and grow together.

Blessings,
Kristen

Mercy Hurts

The small streak of fur dashed into the shadows so quickly, we could hardly tell what it was.

“It’s a cat, Mom!” Jonathan shouted. “You have to stop! Stop the van, Mom!”

I pulled over against the curb. The children jerked the sliding door open and tumbled out onto the sidewalk before we came to a complete stop. They ran to the spot where the animal disappeared and inserted their arms and faces and curious fingers into the prickly green shrubbery.

“Be careful,” I cautioned. “You don’t know what it is!”

“Ow!” Faith screamed and jerked her arm out of the bush.

“Oh, jeeze, Faith! Get your hands out of there! It’s probably rabid!”

“It’s a kitten, Mom! Mom! I can see a kitten! Oh, Mom! It’s so tiny!” She scrambled on top a decorative stone wall that guarded a neat yard and peered in at the terrified animal. I looked around for the neighbors who might not appreciate my child climbing on their wall, but no one was home.

“She’s hurt, Mom,” Jonathan said from below, bending branches into unnatural positions to get a better look. The bush hissed at him. “I can see blood,” he added softly.

I bent over and looked into the branches. Something wild and fierce stared back at me with a fiery resolve to tear me to pieces if I so much as pointed a finger in her general direction.

“We’ve got to save her!” my children pleaded.

“There’s no way we’re going to get that kitten to come out, guys,” I reasoned.

But Jonathan was already climbing inside the shrub and Faith was leaning in from the top and before I knew it, I was holding a hissing, spitting kitten by the scruff of the neck.

She smelled like death. Yellow streaks of puss leaked down into torn and matted fur.

“She’s so cute!” my children exclaimed because they take no notice of details. “Oh, look how little she is! Can we keep her?”

We brought her home and stuck her under the faucet with a generous handful of antibacterial soap. Her eyes grew ten times at the sound of the water and she hissed like a rattler, but when she was all wrapped up in a towel afterward she looked tiny and frail, not fierce.

“I don’t know if she’s going to make it,” I said when I saw the depth of her injuries and the way the bones ran jagged down her back. “She’s so, so sick, and she hasn’t eaten in a long time.”

The children rushed off and came back with handfuls of cat food which they fed to her a piece at a time. She ate greedily between hissing.

She drank all the little bowls of water they brought to her too, although she could barely reach them and when she did, her neck leaked out the sickness that was inside.

“We are not keeping that cat,” my husband said when the kids told him that God sent us a kitten.

But then he looked in at her, huddled in the corner of a cardboard box, and even he had to admit that there was nothing to do but show mercy. That fragile, broken creature would not survive without it.

Days passed. All the hair on her neck and chest fell out, revealing a hot abscess. When she opened her mouth wide like a lion, no sound came out. Her entire throat was aflame with infection.

By some miracle, the kitten survived. She stopped hiding behind the washing machine and began to sleep with the children. She met our older cat.

“We have to find a home for that kitten,” my husband observed one day when the cat box was full and the cat food was nearly empty and we could hear the kitten sharpening her claws on the living room rug.

“We can’t give her away, Mom,” the children pleaded. But that was the deal all along.

That adoption fell through, and then another, and each time, the kids grew more and more fiercely attached to the swirly-furred kitten in our house.

“When I grow up, I am going to keep that sweet little kitty,” Paul whispered, cupping the kitten in his freckled hands as she squirmed to get away. He forced the kitten to sit on his lap long enough to sing her the love song he made up on the spot.

Watching it hurt. We had given up time and resources to save this kitten, and in exchange, it was breaking my children’s hearts.

But mercy is like that, isn’t it? It hurts. Mercy costs something, even when it’s a very small mercy like saving a stray cat.

The bigger mercies, like adopting children and rescuing prostitutes and loving the mentally ill, well, those mercies carry a cost that can crack a person right open. Often, it means taking the hurt and destruction—the brokenness—into your own home and opening yourself and your family up to the consequences.

I think about these bigger mercies and I wonder if it’s worth the risk. Is it worth the potential harm to my children to become a foster parent? Is it worth the rage to get involved with the fight against sex trafficking? Is it worth heartbreak to show forgiveness to those who don’t deserve it?

Because all I’ve done is rescue a cat, and even that has left me a little raw.

But then Faith comes up to me with the kitten in her arms and says, “Do you think the kitten would have died without us?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Hmmm. I’m glad we found her.”

“Even though we have to give her away?”

“Oh, yes,” Faith answers without hesitation. “We saved her life, didn’t we?”

Indeed.

It is the obvious answer to the question. We saved her life.

Mercy is worth that risk. Mercy is worth that hurt. We saved her life. There is no hurt that could take away that joy.

Mercy was worth it.

The End

Exploring Carlsbad Caverns

Today, the road to Carlsbad Caverns winds through the Chihuahuan Desert and the Guadalupe Mountains

The year was 1898, although there was little need to know the year or the month or even the hour for a man who had spent his life out in the endless Chihuahuan Desert. Ever since he was ten years old, he had been a cowboy, preferring to earn a living in the wilderness than an education in a schoolroom.

For six years, the days rolled on almost without distinction. Stick and wire fences were all that broke up the endless miles of creosote bushes and blazing blue sky. Mile after mile, day after day, it was the same.

Then one day, the young man looked up from the fence row he was repairing and saw the earth open up. A black cloud belched out from broken ground and filled the endless blue with shards of night.

He mounted his horse and rode on and on against the sunset until he found himself staring into the very center of the earth. A deep, greedy black pit hissed cool, dank air across his face. The black ashes that swirled around in the growing darkness were not ashes at all, but thousands and thousands of Mexican free-tailed bats.

The natural entrance to Carlsbad Caverns, as it looks today

His name was Jim White, and he was standing face-to-face with the discovery that would change his life forever. He had found Carlsbad Caverns.

The Glovers at Carlsbad Caverns! Why am I the only one who looks excited?

Night was growing fast, but Jim made up his mind right then and there to come back and see what was inside that hole. Other people had seen the same thing he had–a gigantic black pit filled with bats that flew out and clouded the desert sky each night–but not one of them ever had the thought to go down into the bat-filled darkness to see what was inside.

The entrance to Carlsbad Caverns is bright and easy to navigate today.

But Jim was sixteen, and God gives sixteen-year-old men adventure in their blood and strength in their bodies to do the things that need to be done to move this world forward. He was not old enough yet to know the danger of discovery and not wise enough to the value of life to think it might not be worth giving up for a hole in the ground.

So he came back with the tools of his trade: barbed wire, foraged sticks, and a home-made lantern. Jim worked the wire into a ladder, lit up his lamp, and descended into the darkness. Even the weak glow of the blue flame could not keep him from seeing the beauty hidden in the cavern.

Inside Carlsbad Caverns where grand columns great humble visitors

Massive stalactites, stalagmites, and draperies–words Jim had never even heard before–stood before him in silent tribute to the Artist who had been forming them in secret for thousands of years before any human eye would ever see them. He wandered farther and father as the cave continued to open into new passages filled with unspeakable wonders. He was a man among giants.

Stalactites in Carlsbad Caverns

Suddenly, Jim’s light went out. Darkness clapped her hand against his mouth so he could not scream. The man was a boy again in an instant. He struggled to breathe in the sudden, frantic realization that he had been swallowed by the earth and could not find his way out.

Slowly, panic gave way to reason and Jim managed to find the extra kerosene he had carried down in a canteen. He filled his lantern blind, and when the light shone around on the eerie, ancient catacomb again, he fumbled, shaking, for the way out.

Even with the modern lighting, this panoramic view of Carlsbad Caverns shows that it remains a dark and mysterious place to behold

But he came back time and time again, learning the passage ways by unwinding a spool of yarn behind him so he would not lose his way. Over time, he brought others to the cave: tourists, scientists, famous adventurers and important men–anyone who wanted to share the wonder with him.

Jim lived above the caves his entire life, always learning, always discovering, always looking deep to see what other secrets the earth held for him. Even after the caves gained national attention, he stayed. No one else knew the caves like he did, after all, and no one else loved them as well.

A still-active stalagmite grows with the slow dripping of water in the Big Room of Carlsbad Caverns

We came to the caverns over one hundred years after Jim White first stood at the gaping black hole and decided to venture in. Even though all the decades have passed and the cave is no longer something fearful, I felt as if I was making the discovery on my own. It was bright in there now, not dark, and the bats were gone for the winter. Paved paths, not questionable ladders and guano buckets, led us down into the belly of the earth.

But what a sight it was to behold.

Never in my life have I seen something so awe-inspiring as those caves, whose arched ceilings and intricate walls are more beautiful than any temple ever made by man. Where on this earth could I go to see the works of any hands that could rival this? What other architect could build such glorious structures, drop by drop, with water?

The cathedral that is Carlsbad Caverns

It took my breath away.

I thought of Jim White, who stood on the edge of the deep, dark cave with dusty boots and no good reason to go further, and made a choice. He went in.

And then we went back. He went deeper, and higher, and farther–farther than the safety of yarn balls and handmade ladders. He could have been satisfied with the beauty of the first great hall of stone, but he wasn’t. Somehow, he knew that the deeper he went, the more glory he would find.

Deep in the bowels of Carlsbad Caverns. If you look closely, you’ll see Jeff and the kids on the path.

Still, that sixteen-year-old boy had no idea what wonders he would find beneath the earth. He thought it might be something great, but he could not even begin to fathom the depths of the riches of his discovery. Even today, more than a hundred years later, the far-reaches of Carlsbad Caverns remain largely uncharted and undiscovered.

In the Hall of Giants, facing the enormous stalagmites at Carlsbad Caverns

But if you were to climb to the surface and look around, you would see the same unchanging desert that Jim saw every day of his life. The same blue sky, the same sandy ground, the same line of mountains in the distance. If he had not ridden toward the unknown, and been willing to step into the deep, we might never know that there was anything more to see in the great New Mexican wilderness.

I stood in those caves, eyes raised in wonder, and thought, “How much do I miss of God because I am not willing to look, and not brave enough to go deeper, then deeper still?”

What if I was willing to be unsatisfied with what my eyes could see? I wonder what marvels would await me right beneath the surface.

Five in Tow in Carlsbad Caverns

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