5 Effects Of Shouting On Your Kids

We want what’s best for our kids. It’s why so many parents struggle with parenting choices. And we’re only human, after all.

It’s normal to get frustrated with your children, especially if they are misbehaving. But the way you express this frustration and deal with the situation can have major implications on their personality development and their long-term health.

In fact, harsh parental disciplining measures, like yelling, can have an even bigger impact on kids than previously believed. Read on to learn what clinical studies have found about the long-term effects that yelling can have on kids.

* Yelling makes their behavior problems get worse

You might think that yelling at your kids can solve a problem in the moment or can prevent them from behaving badly in the future. But research shows that it could actually be creating more issues in the long run. Yelling can actually makes your child’s behavior even worse. Which means you have to yell more to try to correct it. And the cycle continues.

A study on parent-child relationships showed that this is just the case in many families. In the study, 13-year-olds who were shouted at by their parents reacted by increasing their levels of bad behavior over the following year.

* Yelling changes the way their brain develops

Yelling and other harsh parenting techniques can quite literally change the way your child’s brain develops. That’s because humans process negative information and events more quickly and thoroughly than good ones.

* Yelling can lead to depression

In addition to children feeling hurt, scared, or sad when their parents yell at them, verbal abuse has the ability to cause deeper psychological issues that carry into adulthood.

In the study that tracked increasing behavioral problems by 13-year-olds who were yelled at, researchers also found an uptick in depressive symptoms. Many other studies also show a connectionTrusted Source between emotional abuse and depression or anxiety. These kinds of symptoms can lead to worsening behavior and can even develop into self-destructive actions, like drug use or an increase in risky sexual activity.

* Yelling has effects on physical health

The experiences we have growing up shape us in many ways, some of which we may not even realize. Stress in childhood from a verbally abusive parent can increase a child’s risk for certain health problems as an adult. ResearchTrusted Source tells us that experiencing stress as a child can have long-term impacts on physical health.

* Yelling can cause chronic pain

A recent study found a link between negative childhood experiences, including verbal and other kinds of abuse, and the later development of painful chronic conditions. The conditions included arthritis, bad headaches, back and neck problems, and other chronic pain.