Yelling at someone is a delivery system. It is your response that travels from you to the other person.
Something prompts you to make the split-second decision to yell rather than deliver with more self-control. If we look closely, we may see some kind of disarray.
Let's say your child's room is a mess and you've told him a dozen times to clean it up. You resort to a scathing shakedown that leaves him in tears. Cleaning begins but so does a tear in his heart.
Yes, he needs to clean but the teaching process is in disarray.
Perhaps sit down with paper and pencil and make a cleaning schedule. By 7pm, for instance, all toys need to be back in their rightful place. He gets to check his chart at 7pm when all is done. Rewards grow out of a certain number of checks. Who doesn't work for rewards? (Adults do.)
Make sure he knows what you mean by clean. Does he know where toys go? Is there a system? Have you cleaned with him a number of times so he knows what success looks like?
If you are too tired to create a process, then the disarray may be in your overloaded schedule or a stress that is threatening your own peace.
First steps are to trace the source of disarray. Spend time at the source, asking God for creative solutions. Don't expect yourself to live in disarray in any area of your life and not succumb to yelling.
The temptation and ease of yelling are too hard to overcome when disarray of circumstances or feelings is the pothole over which your response to a situation must travel.
A good sheriff tries to solve the root of the problem.
Be a good sheriff.
