Does shouting damage children?

I'm feeling pretty nervous about asking a question on this website, to be honest. What responses will I get? Will people understand my question, or just mock my post? Well, here goes.

Similar to how Quasimodo the hunchback of Notre-Dame became deaf as a result of ringing the bells, does shouting at children mentally damage them?

When I was in my first year of junior school, I liked my teacher, who shall remain anonymous for the sake of personal privacy. She was usually soft-spoken and would sometimes raise her voice, but not to the point of shouting; she knew how to keep a class in order without needing to yell. We must have ticked her off many times, seeing as how we were seven-year-olds who disliked being repressed by rules and regulations, but I don't remember her shouting at us that year.

In my final year of junior school, the same teacher switched classes and thankfully taught the class next door to ours. I say thankfully because she had changed for the worse, at least in my opinion. She had a tendency to shriek and scream at somebody if they did something wrong. We did maths with her, which didn't make things any better for me. As this teacher's shouting continued with no signs of stopping, I eventually lost all faith in her and disliked her intensely. I bottled my emotions at her yelling all year until—when she shouted at the top of her lungs at two girls for leaving the classroom without asking for permission—I couldn't take any more, and broke into tears.

The reason why I ask this question is because ever since that year, I've been much more emotionally sensitive and fragile than I was before. Shouting, being made fun of, and negative comments/feedback reduces me to tears. I know I sound like an overgrown five-year-old and you're probably all laughing at me, and looking back at my eleven-year-old self and some of the stupid and disobedient things I did back then, I don't blame you. Still, I believe this teacher's shouting has mentally damaged me, because I'm seventeen now and I'm still emotionally sensitive to the above when I was able to deal with them before that year. Of course, I may be completely wrong about all this.

Hello BlueMoonBlueEarth,
It's nice to meet you. I'm sorry for what you are going through. Yelling is not fun at all.
It's possible that the yelling has made you mentally damage, but I'm not a doctor, so I recommend you see a psychiatrist. Meanwhile you can check out some of the threads we have here at psych central.

Coping with emotion is one.

Another is Survivors of abuse
I wish you the best, and hope you can find some peace.

Sincerely,

Piraeus

Hello BlueMoonBlueEarth, welcome to Psych Central.

You will not be judged here, we are all in the same boat, battling some mental health issue.

Some people are more sensitive than others but in my book, abuse is abuse. What you have encountered is verbal/emotional abuse and for some people even witnessing it can have a massive impact. It is well known in the mental health field that what happens to us in childhood shapes how we are as adults.

In this article The Consequences of Verbally Abusive Athletic Coaches | Psych Central it says,

Ok, I know in that article it is talking about athletes and coaches but you can see how it is the same for a teacher or authoritive figure over a child.

Having realised this may have impacted you and how it still affects you to this day, it would be really good for your healing to look into getting referred for psychotherapy. Your GP/psychiatrist can refer you or you can look into getting more information from Mind - Home

Keep sharing on the forums, it helps to talk.

Sounds to me like your teacher was really losing it. Evidently she was having her own issues and losing control.

Shouting isn't good, but at least if we do find ourselves shouting at kids, then I think we should apologize when we cool down.

Does shouting damage children? YES. I could get on a soapbox about how I've concluded that the answer to your question is a definite YES, but I will just say that shouting at children, at animals, or at anyone is damaging. For so many reasons.

My Dad suffered from his parents, yelling and each other and their children. It's one thing he said he would never have in his home and he didn't. I had quite a peaceful childhood. Eventually, he got dementia when he got old and yelled at me a lot. I was an only child. I was the one responsible of having him sent to a nursing home. After that I got yelled at a lot. This caused me great distress because even though I new he wasn't himself, it hurt.

Therapy would probably be a good shot at getting past this trauma.

i definately think shouting is bad for people children and adults. I know as i am still afraid of someone shouting at me especially when is a social situation, i've experienced abuse from an ex that would love to embarrass me in restaurants and other public places. His mother embarrassed me so bad too, he followed in her footsteps. It is debilitating and abusive and i never want to feel that bad again, and to let people here know that was the backbone of our seperation.

Verbal abuse damages the immune system. The brain can physically change with verbal abuse alone...The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans saved my life and I believe should be required reading for everyone on the planet.

Every time you are under stress your body releases cortisol. Cortisol damages the immune system

The way you've described, it does sound damaging. There's using a loud voice, to command a room, and then there is demeaning remarks and intimidation of vocal cords.
My oldest struggled this school year, over this type of behavior, maybe not shrieking, but who tells a child their art isn't good enough? Wish he'd told me sooner. Certain, for him, double hard, not piecing that's a behavior he's seen in action before. ..he sort of has it right, walk away from it, however, he needed to learn to talk about it and what it means going forward.
I hope, you can sort through it, and learn coping techniques for when you get that familiar feeling.

Sent from my LGMS323 using Tapatalk

Oh hunni,

None of us are laughing... Having someone you respect (parents/teacher) show that kind of emotional abuse ( shouting ) can cause a reaction I you to be hypersensitive to those behaviours...

Seeing a therapist might help and give you some tools to use in those situations. After what I have been through I really cower when there are two adults fighting - it scares the crap out of me and I want to run away. I'm working on trying to deal with that better rather then freak myself out l

Much love to you

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Yes it is damaging. Sometimes being shouted at can make me feel so intimidated that I feel as if I'm going to wet myself (and I'm over 18) ... and I think that's from childhood experiences of teachers shouting at me and picking on every little thing I did wrong.

In the process of raising me, my parents have yelled or shouted. But it was minimal and almost every time controlled. I mean, I am pretty sure i can count on one hand the number of times it was done from the time I was able to form solid memories until I became a legal adult. And shouting is not so much a problem, in my opinion FOR ME.

However, what has become a problem more often [though I've had improved reaction over the years] are loud noises: banging of any kind. Slamming doors, dropped books, quickly closed cabinets, drawers that are shoved shut, etc.

This is because these things are associated with poorly regulated anger, frustration, unexplained negative feelings that were not talked out or expressed or worked out. I felt these emotions, feelings. I felt the tension these feelings created even before they were manifested into these physical behaviors and noises and then the release was these noises.

Because there was no explanation, and the release was the noise, and the noises was troubling and upsetting and all of those things were often unpredictable as a child- I didn't have the understanding to know that, for example maybe some *** at the financial institution screwed up something with the mortgage payment and then was unseemingly rude on a friday and then someone at work made it so my father had to stay late and then someone ran into my mother's car, etc etc etc and all of this happened on the same day. I only saw/ heard the end result which was that my parents were obviously frustrated, I had trouble communicating with them and eventually there were loud slamming noises which scared me.

Now when my roommates are trying to get ready quickly in the kitchen- things get slammed or open and shut quickly and it creates a HUGE amount of anxiety. For no reason actually related to what is going on in the here and now. But I get anxious and uncomfortable and a little fearful even- I can feel my body tense up, my heart race, my breathing quicken.

How does this relate?

Shouting generally is effective because it is intimidating.
When you use it as a consistent disciplinary technique and not as a disciplinary technique for things that are DANGEROUS [like when I didn't understand not to cross the super busy and dangerous roads without looking or holding an adults hand] it can get to the point where a child and eventually that adult becomes afraid to be corrected, and afraid to be incorrect, about ANYTHING.

because they are afraid to be yelled at- yelling inccreases physical stress and often beyond our control instill fight or flight. This is useful in very very rare and control situations- as I feel most of the times when my parents very rarely used it to associated an appropriate fear with dangerous situations.

When you start to use it to associate it with math or talking in class, it ends up being associated with every day things, I have no idea if this is TRUE, but I would imagine this could possibly contribute to a general anxiety and associated fear or discomfort with normally innocuous situations.

Harmful, absolutely.


I'm sorry. Not something anyone should be making fun of.

Yes, I really think yelling and screaming at anyone is damaging. For a child, it is most definitely harmful. I'll never understand why anyone feels they have to yell or scream their lungs out to get their point across. It seems like a control issue for them. The louder they can yell gives them more control over the person. I've experienced enough yelling from others to last another 10 life times.

I can't tell if you have been damaged by the teacher's shouting, but I can tell you that I was damaged by my parents' shouting when I was a child

Yeah I think it does.