A recent american study of nearly a thousand families has found that parents who shout at their adolescent children for misbehaving can cause some of the same problems as hitting them would, including increased risk of depression and aggressive behaviour.
The study found that although parents thought that yelling at their teenagers would get them to listen and behave, the opposite was actually found to be true and it even made the behaviour worse in some cases. The closeness of the relationship between parent and child also did not seem to negate the effect of shouting at the teenager.
Dr Wang co-author on the study explains why shouting is so detrimental to young teenagers: “Adolescence is a very sensitive period when [kids] are trying to develop their self-identities. When you yell, it hurts their self image. It makes them feel they are not capable, that they are worthless and are useless.”
Parents’ Yelling Is as Harmful as Hitting, Study Finds – WSJ.com.
