Yelling, Spanking: What Are We Doing to Our Kids?

Do you recall being spanked as a kid? Many people do — but that doesn’t mean they’ve turned out to be terrible parents as a result.

An East Coast mom of two children recalls how her own father came home from work when she was maybe seven or eight years old and spanked her for something she had done that day.

“I still remember the feelings of anger, both on his part toward me and on my part toward him for doing it.”

The unpleasant experience is partly why she vowed never to spank her own kids once she became a mother. “And I never have,” she said. “I vowed I would find another way to teach my children right from wrong.”

On “The Laura Ingraham Show” on Monday, Julie Ann Barnhill, an author and speaker on parenting topics, shared thoughts on the notion of yelling and spanking children as disciplinary measures — and what the downsides for parents and kids might be.

When they get angry with their kids, she said parents — like volcanoes — can “have that magma, that ‘build,’ and sometimes it explodes. It explodes in different ways,” said Barnhill, noting that anger can show itself either verbally or physically. “What gets us there is often the frustration we feel with our kids [over things they’ve done] … I often ask parents, ‘How many of you were perfectly fine until you had children?'”

“What gets us there is often the frustration we feel with our kids.”

Barnhill’s book, “She’s Gonna Blow,” was a bestseller when it first came out some years ago and remains a smart, handy guide for parents and caregivers on this topic.

“The ideal,” she said on “The Laura Ingraham Show,” is that parents are always in control.”

“It’s not life,” responded host Laura Ingraham, a single mom of three children and the editor-in-chief of LifeZette.

Barnhill agreed. “Sometimes this isn’t everybody’s thing … Maybe it’s just one child who pushes the button … and that’s part of the wisdom [that people gain over time]. I’m 51 and my kids are now 28, 27 and 22, so I speak from a place of, ‘I was there, these are things I did differently,’ and we have a real healthy adult relationship with one another. And I think that’s what women and men want to hear when they’re in the middle of it.”

Related: To Spank or Not to Spank? Maybe. Sometimes.

Studies have shown that children who were yelled at and spanked when they were kids go on have less satisfying adult relationships — but the negative affects of spanking were offset when parents praised their children afterward and said they loved them. “The negative affects of yelling, however, were not erased by parental warmth,” Ingraham noted of the studies, adding that, “occasionally, when you say something six times [to a child], it’s frustrating.”

She also noted that context is critical. “What kind of yelling are we talking about?”

“It’s the tone,” replied Barnhill. “It’s what is said and how it goes into the spirit of the child. That’s really what this all comes down to … [Parents] have to discipline and corral,” she added, “and there has to be some order” maintained in the household, of course. But it’s “how the words are penetrating our children’s spirit” that matters, she said, acknowledging that parents “have to limit the number of voices that we allow into heads and hearts. Today, everyone is an expert … [and] a lot of us have no business touching our children or opening our mouths, because we’re out of control at that emotional moment.”

Related: The Secrets of Raising Happy Kids

Ingraham observed, “When you’re out of control, just go into another room and breathe. It sounds funny, but it works. I say a ‘Hail Mary’ … Breathing actually controls your actions.”

“Let children know that we love them no matter what.”

Barnhill acknowledged the importance of parents’ awareness of where they are in that moment in time, “what you’re feeling, how you’re progressing … And when you feel [that anger] coming on, you have to take back your brain, take back your anger, purposely slow down your speaking, and tone it all down.”

Above all, it’s vital to take a break, let children know that, above all, we love them no matter what — and that we want the best for them always as their moms and dads who are helping guide them through their growing-up years.