As a technician for a packaging machine company I do quite a bit of travelling, spending many hours in airports and restaurants. One thing that I have discovered to be consistent everywhere I travel is that people think that yelling is the way to resolve conflicts. Whether it is parents yelling at children, employers at employees or vice-versa; customers yelling at store clerks or spouses yelling at each other, there seems to be no end to it. It appears to me that somehow we equate yelling and authority to be the same thing. If I raise my voice louder than you, then somehow I command more respect. May I say to you, if this is your approach to handling conflict, that nothing is further from the truth. If you have to yell, you have proven that you have lost control of the situation (and your own self-control) already. I watch parents yell at their kids and then boast of how well they have disciplined their children and how well they control them. You need to stop kidding yourself, and that is the only one you are fooling; if your children were that well disciplined you would never have to raise your voice for all to hear. I raised five children and never embarrassed them or myself by making a scene in public.
The same is true with handling conflict with others. Most people yell because it is easier to handle problems from the distance of a loud voice than to sit down and reason things out one on one. Many times we yell for fear if we do sit down to reason, we might find our arguement is not as strong as we need it to be. We live in a nation where people don’t like dealing with conflict, so we yell and hope to brow beat the other into submission rather than calmly inflict the necessay discipline to correct the matter.
May I offer you a Bible guideline? God says “Come now and let us reason together”, Isaiah 1:18, God never yells, He simply lays the facts out: if you accept and repent then all is forgiven. If you refuse, then the necessary disciplinary action is administered if you are a child of God; if not, then the resulting punishment is made known and you can choose how to respond. The point being is God is not intimadated by you or what others think of Him if you do not respond as you ought to his commandments. Parents if you cannot discipline your children at home so that they obey in public, don’t think yelling is going to change their conduct or cause others to respect your parenting skills. Employers, if you do not have the respect of your employees by your example of leadership, yelling certainly will not change that. Spouses yelling will never solve conflicts, it is a soft word that turns away anger, and contrary to the old saying about sticks and stones, words do hurt and their effects last far longer than broken bones. So tone it down, let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt and let’s lead a quiet and peaceful life.