Stop Yelling at your Kids, It's Bad for Them - Essay Example

Most of the arguments made in the article are the personal opinions of the author. For example, (Waldman) starts from the definition of discipline saying that discipline is about education, but ends up being about punishment. She does not cite any references in support of this claim. I personally think that discipline is not about education, but about behavior modification for the better. In order to achieve behavior modification, a system of punishment or reward is commonly implemented at all levels everywhere. There is a lot of research that supports the usefulness of this system. Unless an individual is rewarded for showing good discipline and punished for showing bad discipline, the individual cannot learn, actively or passively, which behaviors are socially acceptable and which are not.

The author has based her results on a study that found out that yelling has bad effects on the psychology of the children which can be biased. Furthermore, the study is based on middle-class families in which the children require the least disciplining anyway. Even if the results of the study are believed, they cannot be applied to poor and elite Americans that make up a larger part of the American society combined, alike.

The author has made a good analysis of the possible outcomes of yelling i.e. either the child gets embarrassed and becomes quiet or the child yells back. While these are rightly the two possible outcomes of yelling, it is wrong to say that parental yelling instills embarrassment or anger in the children. Yes, it does induce these feelings in the children for a while, but this is healthy. If a child is raised without letting him/her experience these feelings at all, he or would not know when to use these feelings in his/her dealing with others in the society.

There are a lot of societies in the world in which the law places no limitations on the behaviors a parent can execute to discipline a child till the time the child is safe. Most of the conservative societies of the East including India, Bangladesh, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia do not impose such restrictions on the parents. Practically, in a vast majority of cases, children raised in those families turn out to be more disciplined, caring and loving toward their parents. Not only do those children never shout back at their parents themselves, but they also cannot take it when somebody else even talks bad about their parents. Their behavior toward their parents is so nice because their parents have used the right combination of spanking and yelling to raise their children in such a way. Their technique works more often than not. The west should take lessons from those societies.

On the contrary, what happens in our society where the law has placed so many restrictions on what a parent can and cannot do to their children is completely devastating. Let’s take the Maury Show for example. It is a very popular show in which Maury, the host introduces the problems faced by average Americans in their personal lives. This includes all classes of Americans, including the rich, the middle-class, and the poor. One can frequently find such episodes in the Maury Show where a parent is abused verbally, physically, or both by his/her children. This is a really upsetting situation and parents in such a situation feel awkward and unsafe in their own homes. This is definitely the result of such a legal framework in which parents’ hands are tied whereas the children are given the leverage to do whatever they want to do. Children in such a society as ours know the legal limitations imposed on the parents and tend to blackmail the parents for that.

If the weapon of yelling is taken away from the parents, they practically get into an inferior position to their children because while the children can yell and shout at their parents, the parents cannot. Taking the right to yell away from the parents essentially makes parenthood a punishment rather than a blessing. Parents should be principally allowed to discipline their children in whatever way they feel appropriate, even if they have to spank them once in a while. Thinking of advising parents not to yell at their children, when this is the last weapon they have is a horrible idea.