3 Psychological Effects of Yelling at a Child

Have you ever broken a vase by mistake? Did you ever lose a tiffin box at school? Then you might’ve experienced that sense of fear or some of us might have even lied because we don’t want to get yelled at by our parents. Every child at one point in his life would’ve been yelled at by their parents. Especially in India, where parenting can be relatively harsh when compared to other countries, yelling is quite commonly used as a disciplinary method. Just like every other disciplinary method and punishment, yelling has both short term and long term effects. Some forms of punishment can even emotionally scar the kids for life.

Now, let us look at the physical and psychological effects yelling has on children. 

1. Exhibiting more Aggressive behaviour- Ironic isn’t it?

It has been proved that children model their behaviour from the adults in their life. Research shows that when children look at adults that are aggressive, they tend to mimic it better. Not just yelling, but any negative aspects that the children are exposed to by the parents, the children tend to copy their behaviour.

Children should have a good role model while growing up if the parents are aggressive and display this aggressive behaviour in front of children, the children will imitate them and grow up developing hostile tendencies. It has been observed that children who are punished aggressively at an early age tend to grow up to become aggressive and hostile adults. So yelling at children is not a great idea, if you don’t want them to grow up to be grumpy adults.

2. Low Self Esteem – The biggest mistake parents make

Yes, parents usually have their children’s best interest at heart, and when they yell at their kids, they think that they are helping them be better in the future. Sometimes, this may work, but most of the time it just leads to the child having self-esteem issues for the rest of their life. Imagine having someone that yells at you whenever you make a mistake, you will eventually give up and stop trying to do anything altogether just because you’re afraid of getting it wrong. 

Parents don’t realize this and yell at their kids, which leads to them doubting their own actions and having to deal will low self-esteem issues when they grow up

3. Communications issues – Children developing an inferiority complex and confidence issues

When children are yelled at for even the smallest mistakes they tend to develop all kinds of psychological problems ranging from anxiety to depression. One very common Long term effect is children developing an inferiority complex and not knowing how to communicate properly.  This happens when the parents are strict and scream at the kids for everything. The constant screaming leads to the children doubting their own ability and developing an inferiority complex, which in turn results in a lack of confidence. 

When this happens the child doesn’t know how to communicate properly and his social life largely suffers due to this reason. By this point, we can all agree that yelling at children is harmful to them, especially in the long term. Showing any sort of aggression in front of your kids will have negative effects. There are also other ways to correct your kids’ behaviour like patiently explaining to them what they did wrong and how they can correct their behaviour in the future. So, from this, we can learn to be more patient when dealing with kids instead of losing our calm and yelling at them.