These days I’m yelling considerably lesser than before, and I think I have the Orange Rhino  to thank. She’s a mother of four who initiated the Orange Rhino Challenge and made a commitment to going 365 days without yelling. I think she’s already at her 461st day as I am writing this.

When I first heard about it, I said to myself, “This is not for me. I’m never going to make it past Day 1.”

I had meant to brush this impossible challenge aside like a silly joke but the image of an orange rhinoceros keeps coming back to bug me. Every day.

Then I would hear a voice in my head, saying, “Take the challenge. Surprise yourself.”

I know deep down, I want to manage the anger. I want to NOT yell. I want to be a cool, composed mother. But how is it possible not to yell? I’ve been yelling to be heard. Yelling so the kids know I mean business. Yelling to get them to do my bidding.

Now I know it’s hard to believe that a mother who loves her kids would yell on a daily basis, but trust me, when you’re with them 24/7, some snapping and verbal whacking is bound to take place.

If there’s a way out, can the orange rhino really show me the way?

So I checked out more details of the challenge online and have been very enlightened by the Orange Rhino “Yelling Meter” and inspired by the stories of mothers who have successfully stopped yelling.

And thanks to the detailed definition of yelling by the Orange Rhino, ever since a week ago, I have been consciously attempting to stay at Levels 0 to 4 everyday, using the everyday voice (0), the whisper (1), the re-direct voice (2), the firm voice (3) and if need be, the sharp, “oopsie snap” voice (4).

I’ve not actually committed to the challenge yet, with the signing up on facebook and all. I don’t even have a target. I’m not so ambitious to go yell-free for 30 days, much less for 365 days straight.

For starters, I just want to go through every day not letting myself get to Levels 5, 6 and 7, which is when things get unpleasant with the nasty snap, the yell, the raging scream.

And this is what I’ve been doing to help myself reduce yelling occurrences. Whenever I’m on the verge of getting to the nasty snap or the murderous screaming, I force myself to take a three minute time-out. While on time-out (usually in the bathroom), this is what I think about:

And when I really breathe and take a step back to think about it, most of the time, I’m the one with the problem, not the kids. Not enough sleep resulting in extreme irritability, utter lack of patience, unreasonable expectations, not scaffolding enough for learning to take place, being too much of a perfectionist and sweating the small stuff, having the raging PMS hormones and being too overwhelmed  –  these are all the real reasons why I snap. These are my triggers for yelling.

What’s amazing is, the more I tell myself these three things, the more I find myself feeling ridiculously stupid for even getting angry with my kids for whatever reasons I got angry about. The more I found myself in a state of feeling ridiculously stupid for being angry, the more I want to stop yelling. And now, whenever I find myself fuming from Level 4 to 5 to 6 to 7, I take a deep breath and say some of these things to myself:

“Hey, Motherkao. Build the relationship first before you wanna be a stickler about the rules.”

“Remember, they are children. Children think this way. Children need to be taught and trained.”

“You need to let children be children.”

“These are my kids.”

“I am here for them. I am here to help them. If I don’t, no one else would.”

I’m not quite ready to be an orange rhino yet, and there’s a lot of practising to do, but I’m taking these baby steps to staying calm and composed in these maddeningly crazy days. What I really, really want to be is to be a great mom to my kids. And I know yelling at them will never help me achieve that.

So I’ll try to yell less, one day at a time. Today’s been looking good, so far.