If it's not conversation, it's yelling

We were watching "Supernanny" last night.  Don't roll your eyes!  If you ever watched that show, you'd see that "Supernanny" Jo has an amazing ability to get out of control parents and kids to stop and listen, to feel shame over what they've done, and to want nothing more than to please her.  They submit to her coaching, believing that if they follow her lead they will be better parents or better kids.

In this episode, the 10 year old daughter threw a ball hard into the face of her 13 year old sister.  It hurt.  The father yelled at her--but not that loudly, we thought, under the circumstances.  He took her to another room to talk about it.  He was visibly calmer, and wasn't shouting or calling her names, but his tone was sharp and his volume a little louder than normal conversation.

We were surprised that Jo told the father that he had "yelled" at the girl, and that he needed to control his temper.  It really didn't seem that bad to us.  The dad was understandably angry.  His voice was only slightly raised in volume.  It seemed appropriate given what the girl had done.  I would have reacted just as harshly, maybe even raised my voice a little bit MORE sharply.

It really didn't seem like a big deal, and we thought Jo was being extreme.  But I watched the episode again today in case there was something there I needed to learn.  Jo brought the girl into her room to talk to her about throwing the ball at her sister.  Jo was blunt, extremely critical, told her she was appalled at the girl's behavior, cut her no slack whatsoever.  But Jo never raised her voice.  Her voice was as calm as if she was at a tea party (she's British, if you didn't know).  And Jo's impact on the girl was a thousand times more positive han when the girl's dad had lectured her.  The girl looked ashamed and left the room to apologize to her sister.

I've seen this show often enough to respect Jo.  If Cesar Milan is the "Dog Whisperer", Jo is the "Family Whisperer", and I'd often rather deal with Cesar's aggressive pit bulldogs than the children Jo has to deal with.  I'm willing to be recalibrated.  I thought yelling meant REALLY shouting at your kids, blowing the roof off the house, or waking the neighbors.  But maybe Jo is right.  Maybe anything louder than a conversation is yelling.