On Monday I had no voice. Funny because on Sunday I sang a duet in RS and directed a successful choir practice... Sunday night it was scratchy, and instead of improving overnight it worsened. All day Monday I still talked my usual amount (only softer); even going visiting teaching, and managing a couple of (brief) phone calls with my sister... who laughed out loud upon hearing my pathetic squeaky whisper of a voice. "I know it isn't funny," she said at the beginning of one phone call, "except that it is really funny." (My kids were more concerned; Zoe even asked if I would have to go to the hospital to get my broken voice fixed.)
During the few hours at home between morning outings and going to my parents' house for my brother's birthday celebration in the late afternoon, I noticed something very strange... the house was more quiet than usual.
You may have gathered that we have four kids, very close in age, which means there is quite often audible chaos in our home. (Having a lot of tile, which echos, doesn't help; but I still love tile.) But I've always attributed the noise level to the fact that our four close-in-age children are always competing for attention, competing to be heard, so when I want to be heard the only solution is to be louder still. Or is it?
Is it possible that all this time I have been part of the problem and not the solution? Is it possible that if I would set the good example by being a little more quiet, the rest of the household would follow my lead? Is it possible that the best way to be heard is to talk softly? Because I tell ya, on Monday when my kids could barely hear my pathetic whisper, they
stopped and listened.
I knew before that this can work. At my girls' preschool (where I'm a "Mom helper" every Thursday) I have successfully used the following technique to get the kids' collective attention: in a soft whisper, you say, "If you can hear me, put your finger on your nose. If you can hear me, put your hand on your head," etc. until all the kids have figured out what's going on... it doesn't take long. For some reason, I rarely (never) try this at home... I just raise my voice to the necessary decibel.
I never used to be a yeller. When I had one and two children, I only raised my voice in the most dire of emergency circumstances. I once overheard a young mother of 4 or 5 talking to another mother, and she said, "I've tried not yelling. But it just doesn't work!" and I thought to myself, "Yelling? Who would yell at their precious children? What's the matter with her!?"
Ah, innocence.
I still wouldn't classify myself as "a yeller" but my kids like to watch home movies from like 5 years ago and they like to point out how nice I was back then (at least how I acted on video). Zoe said to me the other day, "When we were babies, you would never yell at us, or spank us, or anything!" (For the record, I'm not a too much of a spanker.) But there's no question that my voice escalation has, um, escalated over these past few years.
But after Monday's no-voice experience, I'm beginning to rethink the whole voice-raising thing...
Happy Birthday to my awesome brother yesterday!
11 comments:
Isn't it amazing what can work with kids. I did that with my own third graders. My mom, who teaches fifth grade, loves it when she loses her voice because the kids are so much nicer and quieter. The hard part is remembering to talk quieter and not louder. I always forget the trick!
I need to put this to work, Caleb doesn't listen to me no matter what, maybe this would help. Hope your voice gets better soon.
This explains a lot.
I have a loud voice anyway.
But sometimes yelling does make me feel better, even if nobody's listening.
Sorry about the laughter... I wasn't laughing AT you, I was laughing WITH you. Sort of. You should have mentioned that on Tuesday your voice still hadn't come back. I'm just dying to call you this morning to hear how you sound today!
hmmmm... sounds like something I should try, what with my goal to have a softer voice and everything. Mostly I feel like the only way they listen to me sometimes is if I yell. Thanks for trying it out (even though you had no choice.)
I found that, especially with my Lucy, this works really well. In fact when I talk quieter, she starts only mouthing words. She cracks me up. Sorry to hear you lost your voice. I am such a terrible vt that I don't already know this!
Man, I only have two kids and I feel like I'm yelling all day long! Thanks for the sound advice, as usual! Oh, about my parents...Mom accitentaly left the Garage open one night and they had an BUNCH of stuff stollen. My Dad's MP3 player and GPS, and his brand new 10" circular saw. Total bummer. Why do people have to be so LAME!!!
Great point about the yelling, my daughter Chelsea had to take some voice theropy lessons a few years back and the first thing the theripist asked was "Do you come from a big family?" We all talk too loud so that we can be heard, so there could probably softer talking, but we would probably still be softly talking all at the same time as usual. PS I haven't forgotten about the bling binkie, Devan is ordering more crystals.XO
This post inspired me. I tried really hard to be quiet all day. I think with a little practice I could help this household to lower the volume a notch or too.
I just realized that I wrote TOO instead of TWO. I do know the difference. Embarrassing.
Isn't it funny that even when I know this is true and it works, I still yell more than whisper. I've been doing better lately, but those pregnancy hormones sure make not yelling a lot harder than it seems like it should be. Now if I could just figure out the secret that makes kids NEVER fight. Ah, wouldn't that be bliss?!
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