The No Yelling Challenge

NO YELLING CHALLENGE!

A friend on Facebook posted a link to someone's blog about a no yelling challenge for a year.  No yelling at your kids for an entire year.  Wow.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I yell. A lot.  In a way, it is like smoking.  If I get stressed out, I yell.  I hate doing it.  I know it is awful for my kids.  My mom yelled.  I hated when she did.  It makes me feel horrible inside.  My throat hurts, my head pounds, blood rushes to my face.  I know that I make mean scary faces.  There is a reason why I never yell in front of a mirror!  Yelling makes our home feel yuck.  The happiness that is there leaves the second my voice is raised.  Plus, I am now passing on this lovely habit/addiction to my children!  They yell too!  The milli-second anything goes wrong in their world, they are yelling! I don't like seeing that my kids are handling things the same way I do!  BUT as we all know monkey see, monkey do! 

So I have begun. A year of no yelling.  I decided that going cold turkey just wouldn't work.  And since they don't have patches or lozenges for breaking the yelling addiction, I decided to ease into it.  I started a bit last week.  And had the biggest ultimate no yelling challenge EVER!

I was in the check out line at Smiths when I received a phone call from the elementary school principal.  Never a good thing!  Apparently Mr. C had decided on the way home from school that day to use the school bus as his personal bathroom. Not good. Not good at all.  I was horrified! 

But I didn't yell.  Not one bit.  Not even a tiny raised voice. Not even a tiny smack across the back of the head.  I was calm, cool and collected.  We drove home. I sat his little bottom down and asked what had happened on the bus.  He admitted to it, thankfully. We talked about how it was gross and not appropriate.

There were consequences for his extremely wrong choice.  He didn't get screen time that day.  He had to say I'm sorry to the bus driver by writing him a note and giving him about half of his Easter candy.  Since he got suspended from the bus for a week and a half, and I have to drive him, he has to do my assigned chores for that amount of time.  I have to take the time out of my day to drive him, he has to make up that time for me. 

Hopefully the lesson will stick.  But I am so so proud of myself that I didn't yell.  HUGE HUGE HUGE!

However, this week is Spring Break.  And all the kids are home.  The fighting and arguing began approx 30 minutes after they walked in the door yesterday from school. Sigh.  It is going to be another big test!  I have a feeling this will be a constant battle.  And perhaps one of my toughest challenges to overcome during this "transformation"!