The View co-host Whoopi Goldberg believes it’s okay for parents to shout at their children.
During the Oct. 3 episode of the ABC daytime talk show, the 67-year-old actress told her co-hosts, “I’m sorry, you have to yell at your kids from time to time….you do,” Goldberg added, “…because sometimes they just don’t get it. So you have to get a little bit louder.”
The Color Purple actress clarified that the style of parenting she’s defending does not include degrading children with words such as calling them “dumb, ugly punk.” Goldberg said, “That’s not what we’re doing here,” before she gave an example of what she deems as acceptable. “We’re saying, if you take one more step in this house,” she expressed, pinching her lips together and pointing while the audience and co-hosts laughed.
The conversation stemmed from a new study published in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect. As previously reported by BLACK ENTERPRISE, researchers at Wingate University in North Carolina and University College London concluded that verbal abuse, which includes shouting, yelling, and verbal threats, may be as detrimental to children as physical and sexual abuse.
Along with Goldberg, co-host Joy Behar agreed that comparing the parenting tactic to sexual abuse was a bit of a reach. “I believe that children are very vulnerable,” Behar said. “To put sexual abuse in that category is a horrible idea.”
Co-host Sunny Hostin, a mother of two, appeared to keep a straight face in response to Goldberg’s perspective. She told the panel that the study’s experts say “it is as harmful” as sexual abuse. The lawyer added, “I think as parents, we do the best we can, but we tend to model the behavior that we experience as children.”
The panel, which also consisted of Sara Haines and Alyssa Farah Griffen, shared some of their parents’ and their own behaviors regarding the topic. Hostin said her parents never hit or yelled at her, but her husband and his mother are “yellers.” Haines chimed in and revealed that her mom was “a screamer.” She told her co-hosts, “You can come to our house because I also scream, and I feel very guilty when it happens.”
After Goldberg told her co-star not to feel guilty about yelling at her children, the show’s executive producer, Brian Teta, shouted at the Sister Act star to “Go to commercial!”