A study of 967 two-parent families and their children (about half were European-American, 40% were African-American and the rest were from other ethnic backgrounds. Most of the families were middle-class) found that when parents respond to their teens by yelling, or with any form of hostility, ‘it is detrimental in all circumstances.
Yelling is so harmful because the relationship with the parent is not supportive and understanding and the will to do good is broken. When the relationship with a parent feels fragile, it feels as though there is nothing to lose.
Harsh verbal discipline does nothing to teach or guide behavior. Instead, it teaches children to avoid certain behaviors to stay out of trouble rather than nurturing an understanding of what’s right. When the threat of punishment is gone, or when the chances of getting away with bad behavior swing wildly in their favor, the choices are less likely to be good ones.
As it it, teenagers are wired to pull away. The main developmental goal for our adolescents is to separate from us and to find their own independence. It’s what they are wired to do. The drive to pull away from our influence is a such a powerful one. It’s how they find out who they are and where they fit in to the world. It’s all a healthy, normal, vital part of adolescence.
Teens need boundaries, but those boundaries need to be fair, reasonable and non-shaming. Anything else will drive secrecy, lies, and distance. As adults, there’s no way we would turn to someone whose obvious response to our mistakes would be to yell. We might get it wrong sometimes, but there tends to be nothing wrong with our instincts for self-preservation. Our teens are no different.
Read morre…http://www.heysigmund.com/common-discipline-harmful-teens/