The use of spanking to discipline children has been in decline for 50 years. But yelling? Almost everybody still yells at their kids sometimes, even the parents who know it doesn’t work. Yelling may be the most widespread parental stupidity around today.
discipline v.训练,管教:to teach someone to obey rules and control their behaviour,比如说:•Different cultures have different ways of disciplining their children.不同的文化有不同的管教儿童的方法。
in decline 逐渐势微;正在衰退;If something is in decline or on the decline, it is gradually decreasing in importance, quality, or power. 举个例子:Thankfully the smoking of cigarettes is on the decline.令人欣慰的是,吸烟量在逐渐下降。
Households with regular shouting incidents tend to have children with lower self-esteem and higher rates of depression. A 2014 study in The Journal of Child Development demonstrated that yelling produces results similar to physical punishment in children: increased levels of anxiety, stress and depression along with an increase in behavioral problems.
在经常大喊大叫的人家,子女的自尊心往往较弱,抑郁的比例更高。2014年发表在《儿童发育杂志》(Journal of Child Development)上的一项研究表明,冲着孩子大喊大叫会产生类似于体罚的后果:焦虑、压力和抑郁程度增加,行为问题也随之增加。
It doesn’t make you look authoritative. It makes you look out of control to your kids. It makes you look weak. And you’re yelling, let’s be honest, because you are weak. Yelling, even more than spanking, is the response of a person who doesn’t know what else to do.
authoritative/ɔː'θɒrɪtətɪv/ 权威的;威严的;有威信的;Someone or something that is authoritative gives an impression of power and importance and is likely to be obeyed. 比如说:Her smile was warm but authoritative.她的笑容很和蔼,同时又透着威严。
But most parents — myself included — find it hard to imagine how to get through the day without yelling. The new research on yelling presents parents with twin problems: What do I do instead? And how do I stop?
Yelling to stop your kids from running into traffic is not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about yelling as a form of correction. Yelling for correction is ineffective as a tool and merely imprints the habit of yelling onto the children. We yell at our kids over the same stuff every day, and we yell at them some more because the original yelling doesn’t work. Put your clothes away. Come down for dinner. Don’t ride the dog. Stop hitting your brother.
The mere knowledge that yelling is bad, in itself, won’t help, said Alan Kazdin, a professor of psychology and child psychiatry at Yale. Yelling is not a strategy, it’s a release.
“If the goal of the parent is catharsis, I want to get this out of my system and show you how mad I am, well, yelling is probably perfect,” Dr. Kazdin said. “If the goal here is to change something in the child or develop a positive habit in the child, yelling is not the way to do that.” There are other strategies, and they don’t involve screaming like a maniac.
catharsis /kə'θɑːsɪs/ n.发泄情绪;情感宣泄;Catharsis is getting rid of unhappy memories or strong emotions such as anger or sadness by expressing them in some way.这个词汇比较生僻,了解一下即可,不需要背过。
maniac /'meɪnɪæk/ n.举止愚蠢(危险)的人,疯子someone who behaves in a stupid or dangerous way,比如说:•He drove like a maniac to the hospital.他像个疯子似的开车去医院。
Dr. Kazdin promotes a program called the ABCs, which stands for antecedents, behaviors and consequences. The antecedent is the setup, telling a child, specifically, what you want them to do before you want them to do it. Behaviors are where the behavior is defined and shaped, modeled by the parent. And the consequence involves an expression of approval when that behavior is performed, an over-the top Broadway-style belt-it-to-the-back-row expression of praise with an accompanying physical gesture of approval.
So instead of yelling at your kid every night for the shoes strewn across the floor, ask him in the morning if he can put his shoes away when he comes home. Make sure when you come home that you put your own shoes away. And if your child puts his shoes away, or even puts them closer to where they’re supposed to be, tell him that he did a great job and then hug him.
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