A recent study found that it is particularly damaging when dads yell at their kids—even more so than when moms yell. Why is that?
A family study suggests that a father who yells may get the opposite results of what he wanted when it comes to dealing with his teens, according to researchers at Brigham Young University who found when dads are hostile, the kids help out less at home and with strangers.
The study, published in the Journal of Family Psychology, found that moms and dads show about equal levels of both warmth and "verbal hostility," which includes yelling and other verbal negative interaction, as well as putting a child down or escalating the situation when a child is hostile to the parent.
But hostility of moms did not trigger the same negative outcome, according to lead author Laura Padilla-Walker, associate professor and associate director of BYU's School of Family Life.
The findings came from the 10th wave of a "flourishing family" study that looked not at families that are disadvantaged but at 500 families in the Seattle area who are doing well, to see if researchers could determine why some families thrive. When the study began, one child in each family was 11; most of those kids are in their 20s now, though this study's data came from their teen years, Padilla-Walker said.