Is it all yelling and crying?

[Trillian]

I agree, the longer I am dealing with the kids mostly on my own without a decent break, the more likely I am to just snap. It's so important to retain your own time outs from the demands of the house and get out and do something by yourself so you can recharge the batteries so to speak.

[Tobily]

Oh Bath AMEN SISTER.

Said all I wanted to say but couldn't.

I used to think the same thing before I had kids but some days in my house there's lots of yelling and screaming because I'm tired, I've been up and down all night for weeks on end to a teething baby, I haven't had a break from my toddlers incessant questions or willful destructiveness since...well since she was a baby!.... I work, I run a business, sometimes my hubby is being an a$$ and doesn't help....it goes on and on and ON.

It's really, really hard being the parent of two toddlers. Not every day is like that but it does happen. I think we're pretty normal

[Shanti]

Sara - do we have the same neighbours?????!?! Our neighbours yell at the kids, particularly the mother ALL DAY and at 7am on a sunday when we're sleeping in!!! (trying to) she just yells yells yells. & they are age 1 and 3 also!!

[smiles4u]

I grew up in household as a child & teenager with a Mother that just screamed on daily basis, gotta admit WE were the best behaved kids ever BUT she still screamed anyway.

... I think there are some parents out there that might actual be yelling & screaming purely because they themselves are not happy within themselves & take it out on their kids (like my Mother's situation).

Though I know being a parent to a 20mth old as much as she is gorgeous YES i have raised my voice at her a little more than i should have on a few occasions.

I promised myself i would not be a screaming Mother like my own Mother BUT you can have a moment where it just gets the better of you & you have got to get yourself into control &/or remove yourself from the room.

... Hey, no parent is perfect !!

[tan32]

lately I have been put in the position of a SAHM and yes i agree it is very hard. I get to have 5 child free hours a day at work, so i do get to get a break.

My Dad was strict with us as kids and to be yelled at and abused was a normal ocurence, I grew up petrified of my Dad and to this day I still am, although i must say age has mellowed him.
I hate to see the look in my kids eyes when i yell at them, i would hate for them to hate me the way I did my dad

[AnyDream]

OK, I'm the first to admit to the occasional bout of stress-induced shouting - (though there's a big difference between that and constant day-long out of control screaming!) Perhaps those parents are ill-equipped (like many of us) with effective parenting skills. I for one had to seek help with a behaviour support team - not because I had an out of control child but because she was testing me beyond my own perceived ability to cope. Mostly because I am far from home and family and support networks, and because I inherited poor parenting models from my own flawed, stressed and out of control mother! With a few more skills under my belt I was able to restore the balance in my household (most days anyway ). Also, as smiles4u points out, it goes to the parent's state of mind - some ppl are living with higher levels of ongoing stress than others. Not necessarily an excuse for screaming at your kids, but it's an explanation of why.

So, to answer the original question, no it's not all screaming and crying in well-resourced households with good support networks and effective parenting practices!

[Jesswith6]

I'm a SAHM of 6 kids. I admit, after a full day of the kids 'whining' at me for 4 hrs,I snap and yell at them to please be quiet!
It's hard work looking after children constantly without a break and sometimes you do just SNAP!

I have been a SAHM now for 11 years and I would never change it for the world, but once I would like to be able to go to the toilet without hearing the words, ' Mum, K is in my room!' or ' Mum, the boys are being mean to me!' or even hearing the two littlies screaming because the older kids are annoying them.
I don't have the luxury of having anyone babysit my kids, because to me, that is the cheats way out. If I want to go somewhere, I look at it in the way that, would the kids enjoy it as well? Yes, my mum lives around the corner but I couldn't just leave my kids with her,just so I could go out and enjoy myself. This is only how I think, not what I think about anyone else.
I'm going out next weekend, only because my mum has offered to look after the children for a couple of hours, I never asked her to. If my mum offers then i will let her, but I won't force them onto her.
I'm going off tangent here!

As I said earlier, I yell, but only if I feel like I have to, to be heard over them.....have you ever tried to talk when you have 6 kids talking at once??Sometimes, you have to raise your voice to hear over the din.I don't raise my voice because I want to, but if I have to I will.

My answer is,in some households its not all crying and screaming, but sometimes you have to think about what is going through the parents head as well.

[paradise lost]

Another old yeller here i'm afraid. I don't set out to, but sometimes as Bath said, you're cleaning the crayon off the walls only to discover your dear child has poured 1kg of sugar onto the kitchen floor and is making angels in it, or has done a poopie on her pile of books and is carefully mashing it into the pages. It is relentless, exhausting, gross work at times being a parent.

On top of that i'm a single parent though i don't consider myself too badly off because XP DOES come over every day and help out for a few hours. Though to be honest that often translates into he comes and plays with her while i clean up all her mess, wash her clothes, make her dinner and prevent her from doing anything dangerous while he yells instructions at me from the couch. In fact he demands more patience than her and she's 22 months old.

I do yell. If i've told her 3 times to put something down the 4th time i yell a bit (not really shouting but louder than normal talking). If she is doing something dangerous i shout. If i'm beyond the end of my rope and am slowly choking on the noose of responsibility around my neck then i shout. I have only lost it in front of her once, last week, at XP. I regret it deeply but it was entirely justified as he was behaving despicably and i think seeing that i am a human being with feelings and not a verbal punchbag did him good.

I know me, and i will only manage to maintain, in most circumstances, 85% ideal behaviour. Like if 100% would be never yelling, i will yell 15% of the time. Or if 100% is only smacking on the hand, i will smack on the bum 15% of the time. So i have IMPOSSIBLY high ideals of my parenting (like never yell and never ever smacking, anywhere on her body, no matter what, never giving her junk food) so that the 85% of that ideal i actually manage is still acceptable parenting to me.

Bx

[rosehannah]

I hate hearing people yell at their children, yet I do it myself, I don't swear at them though. I never wanted to be a yelling mother and it upsets me when it happens as I feel like I have lost control of the situation and that I am hurting my relationship with my kids.
I do think it is important for children to see how their actions have effected the people around them. I try to use time out as a coping skill and I try to not sweat the little stuff, but like others have posted when you are dealing with it 24/7 and the pressures of life are circling around you there are going to be times when you crack.

If I have shouted at my kids I will often sit down with them when things have calmed down and talk about what just happened, and let them know that it didn't make me feel good to yell at them, and that I didn't love what happened but I do love them.
I too want to correct some of my parents mistakes and have a better relationship with my kids, but as the time goes by and I have my own challenges to deal with I can better understand why they were not the model parents either and most parents are just trying to do there best.

Just to finish with, I have noticed that the different personalities in my house and the way that they interact with each other has a lot to do with the peace in the house.

[Bathsheba]

So, to answer the original question, no it's not all screaming and crying in well-resourced households with good support networks and effective parenting practices!

So true MaryDean and unfortunately there are many households that don't have this necessary set of circumstances.

[Rouge]

I agree Marydean, and also support and advice from friends or even forum members will often help, even when its just to vent so have an extra 30 mins of patience LOL!

[Heaven]

Phew!!! Thankyou for all your posts!!!! You have given me hope!! What you have described is just what I expect. So I'm glad I won't be shocked! I expect that things will be hard sometimes and that I will yell, I'm not perfect, of course I will.

But sounds like you all are able to cope with it without swearing badly at your children, and them and you screaming 24/7! I expect meltdowns and hard times but not so hard that I would yell at my child that they were an F-ing idiot! (heard that from the people next door).

Bath- I was thinking about offering to babysit but I don't really know them, haven't had a conversation with them before, just hello when we see them out the front so I thought if I went over and offered the mum might be embarrassed coz she'd know I'd heard how stressful it is over there iykwim??

[Bathsheba]

SJ: I know what you mean and it might take a few "get to know you" chats to feel confident to ask her. Nearly everyone loves to talk about their kids though and maybe (if you'd like to go down this path) start by just introducing yourself and saying "hi" to her kids and then asking their names/ages. If they have just moved in then maybe the stress of moving house is the thing that has triggered the angry outbursts? I hope that settles down. I'm sure they do actually love their kids, and maybe if you got to know them you might eventually find out what kind of things are making the parents feel stressed/swear. We all know you are a lovely person and I'm sure that they would value having such a caring neighbour

[Heaven]

aww....thanks bath. Good ideas. Sometimes of an afternoon they are out the front and their kids are riding their little bike/car things when we go to take the dog for a walk. We usually just say hi but I think I'll try to speak to her more.