How to Save your Kid's Life by Yelling
Dear Kid Whisperer,
Is it ever okay to yell at your kid? I know you shouldn't do it constantly, but I do feel like it sometimes works to scare my kid into listening to me. My wife tells me I'm mean every time I yell. Am I wrong?
Why do I have the feeling that if I write that you are correct, you will share my answer with your wife immediately, and if I say that you are wrong, she’ll never know about this column?
Answer: I have a wife too.
That being said, you may or may not want to share this answer to whether you are wrong to yell at your kid:
Sorta.
First, here’s the skinny on yelling at your kid: it’s a bad idea 99.999999999999999% of the time. There could probably be a few more nines in there.
When a kid uses a negative behavior (a behavior that causes a problem for another person) the adult needs to make that behavior non-functional (not allow the kid to get attention, control, avoidance, or positive stimuli through that negative behavior) and, with serious or chronic negative behaviors, to teach the kid to not use the negative behavior.
If the adult wants to teach, the kid must be able to learn.
Here’s the thing about learning: the human brain can’t learn when it is scared or threatened. To learn a behavior: to think, “I need to use this positive behavior instead of this negative behavior,” the kid must be in a thinking state. The pre-frontal cortex where the logical thought happens must be switched to “on.” They won’t be in a thinking state if you are making them feel scared or threatened. In this case, the pre-frontal cortex closes up shop, and the brain stem controls the brain. So, in almost all cases, your wife is correct: yelling is a bad idea. All your kid is “learning” is to not make you angry. He’s not truly learning the positive behavior. This is also why it’s usually a good idea to do the learning later when both adult and kid are calm.
All that someone can “learn” when the brain stem is activated by being scared or threatened is to freeze, flee, or fight.
Here's when the yelling may be helpful. Yelling is helpful when your goal is to purposely get your kid to freeze, flee, or fight. In modern, industrialized society, these situations are (thankfully) exceedingly rare. These are the times when permanent injury or death is a possibility.
Here's how I might use yelling when I want to train Kid to freeze while walking on a desert trail in Arizona after I have told Kid to stay on the trail.
Kid Whisperer notices that Kid has walked off the trail and is approaching a large rattlesnake.
Kid Whisperer (as loudly as humanly possible): FREEZE!!!!!!! DO NOT MOVE!!!!
Kid freezes. Kid Whisperer kills the rattlesnake. (Hopefully. Yeesh. This reminds me not to go hiking in Arizona.)
Here’s a more common scenario whereby I might want a Kid to flee:
Kid walks off a curb and into traffic.
Kid Whisperer: GET BACK ONTO THE SIDEWALK RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kid “flees” back to the curb. If the yelling causes Kid to freeze, this can be helpful in creating a stationary target for Kid Whisperer to tackle in order to get Kid out of traffic.
Getting your kid to fight to survive would almost never happen in the modern world, except under the contrived situation of, let’s say, Kid competing in a high school wrestling match:
Referee blows the whistle:
Kid Whisperer: GET HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kid gets him.
Follow up yelling immediately after the life has been saved (“I TOLD YOU NOT TO GET OFF THE TRAIL! YOU ALMOST DIED!!” or “YOU COULD DIE FROM WALKING OFF THE CURB!!” or “GRAB HIS LEG! HE IS THE ENEMY! THE ENEMY DESERVES NO MERCY!!”) can also be effective because you are trying to train Kid not to think, but to automatically and quickly react to dangerous stimuli in a way that will allow them to survive instead of trying to teach them to use positive behaviors.
Finally, if you use yelling to scare your kid into behaving in non life-or-death situations, I think it would make yelling less effective when you do need to use it to save your kid’s life.
Just put this newspaper under some other garbage in the trash so your wife never sees it.