Author Sheila McCraith created The Orange Rhino after her handyman caught her yelling at her sons.
After an embarrassing incident when her handyman heard her screaming at her boys, Sheila McCraith, mother of four, pledged to refrain from yelling for 365 days. She began blogging as The Orange Rhino, and chronicled her yearlong, yell-free journey. Her post “10 Things I Learned When I Stopped Yelling at My Kids” was named one of the top parenting posts in January 2014 by The Huffington Post and has garnered more than 1.5 million views. To share her parenting know-how with other parents who seem to “lose it,” she turned her experiences into a book, “Yell Less, Love More: How The Orange Rhino Mom Stopped Yelling at Her Kids—and How You Can Too!” (Fair Winds Press, 2014, $21.99).
You don’t have to be a yeller to get a wealth of valuable take-aways from this 30-day guide to self-control. The book has a beautiful, easy-to-read layout and is packed with daily tips on how to keep your cool, keen parenting insight, motivational quotes and heart-warming stories from McCraith’s own household.
And the book doesn’t just speak to the “yellers.” It speaks to all of us. I’m not a yeller, but as a working mom who’s always in a hurry, strapped for time and overextended, I do get frustrated and occasionally blurt out a hurtful remark to my daughter. Not a yell, a blurt – but just as damaging. This helpful handbook changed my perspective, and now instead of becoming annoyed at her countless questions, I celebrate her curiosity. Instead of losing my patience as she slowly completes a task, I embrace her natural desire to live in the moment.
Those take-aways alone are worth the read.
Learn more at www.theorangerhino.com.
