STOP YELLING!

I told someone once that I would much rather deal with a daughter's hormonal storm of emotions that with a son's testosterone-laden physical aggression. Sigh. I wonder just how many of my words I will be eating before my children are fully grown.

Quite a few, I'm sure, but not those particular ones. I actually do prefer being faced with the emotional outbursts -- those are at least storms I'm familiar with. I was an emotional teenage girl, too. However, I did not YELL at my parents. Not that I recall anyway. I didn't yell at my mom because she always seemed a bit fragile to me, and subconsciously, I think I thought my rage would crush her. I didn't yell at my dad, because I knew his rage could crush me.

Don't get the wrong idea about my dad. He most certainly wasn't abusive or anything. But he was very strict. Kind of cold. He'd have made a great military general. I think almost everyone I knew was a little intimidated by him. Or a lot.

So, in a way, I'm kind of glad that my teenager feels like she can yell at me. I wouldn't want her to be afraid of me like I was of my dad. On the other hand, my control-freak instincts kick in when she screams and remind me that it is not acceptable for children to yell at their parents. And those instincts often lead me to react in the wrong way. That is, by yelling back. The irony.

I'm right that it isn't acceptable for her to yell at me. But I also have to face that more often than not (although not always), I have set her up for this.

When my girls fight, it is always the youngest I hear yelling. She is always scolded for losing her temper that way. But the oldest gets a talking-to, also. I tell her, "You need to be careful that you are listening close to what she is trying to say to you so that she doesn't feel like she has to yell in order to be heard."

Good advice. I should pay attention to myself more often.