Why shouting seems sensible

I don't want to start by telling you that shouting is bad for children. You know that, you've read it, and it's the reason for the regret. It hasn't stopped the shouting, because knowing it's bad doesn't tell you what to do at ten past six with the pasta boiling over. There are real reasons why you shout, and they deserve stating before anything is said against them.

It works. Three quiet asks produced nothing. One shout produced a laid table. If you were designing a way of getting things done in a house, you'd keep the thing that worked.

You've tried everything else first. Nobody could say you didn't ask nicely. You asked nicely three times. The shout is what's left when nice has failed.

You're at the end of yourself. Ten past six is the end of a day that started at half past six. You've worked, or been with them all day, or both. There's nothing in reserve.

You were shouted at, and you're all right. Your parents shouted, and you turned out fine, and you love them. It's how families are.

They should know by now. An eight-year-old has been asked to lay the table several hundred times. The fact that it still needs asking feels like defiance, and defiance seems to call for force.

And it feels like the only lever. You can't reason with a child who won't look up. You can't wait, because tea is now. Volume is what you have.

I think the shout is trying to meet four needs, and this list is mine. You want the thing done. You want to be listened to. You want some relief from the pressure of the hour. And you want your child to understand that you mean what you say.

All four are reasonable. My argument is that the shout serves them badly. The thing gets done, tonight, at the cost of it being harder to get done tomorrow. You're listened to only at volume, because the shout has been teaching them which asks to ignore. The relief lasts until bedtime and is replaced by regret. And what they learn about whether you mean what you say is that you don't, until the fourth time. The rest of this book is about getting all four things another way.