“Dad all you do is yell at us for what we do wrong.”
How would you respond to this statement?
The good news is that you are not the only dad who has had their kids say this to them. There are two ways to respond and you can find them in the following quote:
“Be curious. Not judgemental.” -Walt Whitman
1) You can become defensive and judgmental. The first time one of my kids said this to me, I immediately went into defense mode. I proceeded to explain why I had to yell or correct them because they were doing the wrong thing. Eventually, I said something to the effect, “I am the adult, and I know better than you.”
2) Be curious. Did you notice that I have been asked this question a few times? By the third…ish time I decided to take a different approach. I didn’t want my kids to just see me as someone who nags them constantly.
So I asked questions like, “What makes you say that? How can I do better?”
Yes, there will be times I need to be firm with my kids, but I don’t always need to yell or correct them on how to do something.
Yelling out a snappy correction comes naturally. Teaching our kids how to do something takes patience and time. But in the end, is the better choice because it builds them up instead of tearing them down.