Talk to the children.

"Do you know that my sister had at one time been the type of mother who would shout and demand that her kids obey and do everything her way. And she seemed to be having her way with her daily rantings until one day, the eldest kid could not take it any longer and struck back?"

"So, what happened?" the friend was impatient to hear what happened.

"The eldest kid was sixteen years of age then and one day after being berated by his mother for half an hour and finding no apparent stop to the verbal bashing despite having tried to explain himself, he took up a chair and heaved it in her direction, the chair missing the astonished mother by just a few inches. It was a great shock to her to have that happen to her. Frightened by the episode, she rushed to see me and told me what had happened that day as tears flowed incessantly from her reddened eyes."

"Oiyo! How can that happened? What did she do after that?"

"She was both frightened and uncertain of the next move to make. I sat her down and told her to think why her son would do such a thing. When she said that all she did was to teach her son not to do the wrong things, I asked her how she did it. At first she was adamant that she was doing right by scolding him for the wrong that he had done. So, I told her that to teach the child the right things is the duty of every parent and to be annoyed is also very natural when a child is constantly committing wrongs. But it is the way she has been doing it. She shouts and rants, broadcasting her child's faults to the whole world while she is at it. When the child is younger, he had not alternative but to take whatever she dishes out. But now the child is growing up and soon he will be big. He understands embarrassment very well even as a little boy. At sixteen he is big and strong enough to stop all the nonsense of having to tolerate all those broadcasts each time he encounters a problem."

Yeah, girl! That sister of yours should stop her shouting and talk slowly to her son. Explain everything in a nice way," the friend offered.

"You're right there. That was exactly what I told her. She needed to talk to her children and sometimes listen to what explanations or problems that they might be facing. She cried and told me that was her style. Now, they no longer want to listen to her. What could she do, she asked me. So, I advised her to return home, forget the nasty happening of the day and start everything afresh. Just keep quiet about it and when she met him, she should not say anything but quietly tell him if he ever asked for something. No more shouting! Talk nicely. It took some time of course but she did learn a lesson from there and eventually she found that the children were responsive to the new her. They slowly, the process taking a number of months, get to understand and communicate with each other their needs and wants in an amicable manner. Now, the family is one happy unit. The children have progressed well and all of them are now so much closer to each other."

Yeah, that ought to be the way parents handle their children. They order, demand and dictate until a rebellion forms. Some parents just do not know how to talk properly to their children and shouting parents end up with equally loud and disrespectful children who rebel when they reach the age of adolescence, perhaps that's the time when they are fed up enough to demand independence. In a country we can have a change of government but children cannot change parents, so.....