sfp press kit · reactivity-free parenting” was still too academic, though. screamfree parenting...
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ScreamFree™ Parenting:
Author: Hal Edward Runkel
Broadway Books
September 4th
, 2007
Contact Information:
Rachel Rokicki, Broadway Books
212-782-8455
Hal Runkel, a licensed marriage and family therapist, is America’s newest
parenting expert, bringing a powerful, revolutionary approach to parenting that has shown
remarkable results for the many thousands of children and parents he has counseled in his
breakthrough clinical work, and for the tens of thousands of families he has influenced through
his seminars, trainings, workshops and media appearances. His new book provides parents all that
they will need to handle the 21st
century child – without resorting to coercion, force, fear,
begging, bribery – or screaming. It is changing lives everywhere.
ScreamFree™
Parenting
• What kids need most are parents who don’t need them.
• Your kids should not be the most important things in your life.
• As parents, we need to focus on ourselves, grow ourselves up, and calm ourselves
down.
We don’t like to watch our children make mistakes. And we don’t like having to take the time
and energy to enforce the consequences. So instead, we scream, or we get anxious, or we stress
out. We may threaten, negotiate, plead. We hope it works, meaning we hope our screaming or our
anxiety force them to behave the way we need them to. When it doesn’t, we scream or even get
more anxious—and then our screaming becomes the consequence itself. This isn’t working and
everyone knows it. No one is learning or growing through this process, but what else can you do?
“The key to good parenting depends on you, because you are the one you can ultimately control,”
says parenting expert and family therapist, Hal Runkel, LMFT. “If you make sure you behave –
even when your kids misbehave – then you have a greater chance of positively impacting the
situation, any situation. Let’s face it: parenting is the hardest thing you will ever do – but it can
also be the most rewarding.”
By becoming a ScreamFree™ Parent, the new approach to parenting developed by Runkel, you
learn to let go of the need to be the perfect parent with the perfect techniques to raising perfect
kids. “The truth is that you don’t have to know all the right answers at all the right times in order
to be the parent you’ve always wanted to be; you just have to learn to calm down,” says Runkel.
It really is that simple. By learning to focus on calming your own emotional reactivity, you begin
to make decisions out of your highest principles (instead of reacting out of your deepest fears).
And what does this do for your kids? It teaches them to do the same.
Runkel, licensed family therapist and the author of ScreamFree Parenting, shows us:
• What to do when you feel overwhelmed – and how not to flip out.
• How to give your kids peace of mind – and not a piece of your mind.
• How to create physical and emotional space—and place—for your children.
• Rules to keeping your sanity when it comes to disciplining your children.
• How to give your kids enough freedom to make mistakes, or even hate you.
ScreamFree parents are raising their kids to be self-directed: the kids learn to make
their own decisions, and to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions.
And Mom and Dad are right there with them. Instead of screaming, getting angry or
becoming emotionally reactive when their children make mistakes, ScreamFree Parents
are helping children learn through those consequences, staying calm, cool, and
connected through the whole process.
Runkel, who is also the father of two children, shares with us a fresh and remarkably
effective philosophical approach to parenting that embraces a parent-first frame of
mind—where parents are a guiding influence and a calming authority in the household.
. He understands the pitfalls of parenting and how everyone wants to raise well
balanced, healthy, happy, and successful children.
Runkel exposes a very pivotal truth: that no one, not even your kids, can make you feel
or do anything. They can’t push you over the edge. They are not that powerful. Your
emotional responses are entirely up to you. You always have a choice—your child is
not the keeper of your emotional remote control. Our greatest enemy as parents is not
TV, movies, or the Internet – nor gangs, bad influences, or drugs. For parents, our
enemy is our own emotional reactivity. It always has a knack of creating the very
outcomes, and relationships, we’re trying to avoid.
“Parenting is not about kids, it’s about parents,” declares Runkel. “The greatest thing
we can do for our kids is learn to focus on ourselves. The only way to retain a position
of influence with our children is to regain a position of control over ourselves.” But
parenting doesn’t have to be a constant battle. Being ScreamFree creates a fundamental
change in your objective as a parent. To truly be in charge means having the power to
create lasting and continued growth, not just exerting power or demanding obedience.
This means inspiring your children to motivate themselves. This makes for a radical
shift, a shift from controlling your kids’ behavior to influencing their decisions. As a
result, you can reach the ultimate goal of every parent -- to launch your child into
adulthood where he or she is a self-directed, decisive, and responsible person.
“Want to Raise Good Kids? Start by Calming Down” --Dallas Morning News
Hal Runkel, MS, MMFT
ScreamFree™ Parenting Q & A
How did you come to develop ScreamFree™ Parenting? Back in graduate school I
became amazed at the level of existing knowledge on how relationships and family
systems really work. I also became amazed at how most of this great knowledge was
couched in academic language and available only to the most educated therapists. So,
as I learned to work with families, and began to raise a family myself, I searched for
ways to capture the best theoretical concepts and effective principles into the working
language of real families and organizations. I then began to see that any truly helpful
teaching would have to begin with calming our emotional reactivity. “Emotional
Reactivity-Free Parenting” was still too academic, though. ScreamFree Parenting was
born.
You say “emotional reactivity” as a parent can be our biggest enemy. Please
explain what it is and where it comes from. Emotional reactivity is the driving
force behind every bad decision, bad pattern, and bad relationship. It is the
opposite of responding according to our highest principles; it is reacting out of
our deepest fears. Emotional reactivity is what happens when our anxiety gets the
best of us, and we act in ways that are actually contrary to our intentions.
Say a dad wants his son to talk to him about his life, telling him “you can tell me
anything.” This is well-intentioned, principled behavior. However, when his son
begins to tell him how we was recently offered drugs and he’s tempted to take
them, Dad flips out. He demands to know the boy’s name, starts to look through
his son’s room, etc. He has now eliminated himself as a resource for the son, who
might actually run to the drug scene because the friends there are more accepting.
This type of scenario happens every time we get reactive; we actually create the
very outcomes we’re trying to avoid.
What responsibilities do parents have to each of their children? We’re called
to launch our children into adulthood with the best foundation for living an
effective life. We are meant to help them become self-directed adults, capable of
discerning the factors that shape their lives, deciding the direction to take, and
living with the consequences of their decisions. That means our main
responsibility to them is to not be responsible for them. They cannot become
responsible for themselves as long as we consider ourselves responsible for their
life and their choices. We are only responsible for our own lives and our own
choices. We are responsible to our kids for how we manage our emotions, our
relationships. We are responsible to them for how we take care of ourselves. We
are responsible to them for whatever we do to create a home that nurtures their
self-direction.
Why do you say the greatest thing a parent can do for their child is to focus
on themselves, rather than the child? As long as I am focused on my children,
orbiting my whole life around them, then I am putting all of my emotional
responses into their hands. I become dependent upon the least mature persons in
the family to actually lead the family. This is simply backwards. Children are not
given to us to become our whole world. They are here to become self-directed,
contributing adults. Our calling is to create an environment that helps them do
that. This means focusing more on what we’re doing and less on them. How am I
going to behave, regardless of their behavior? I have to focus on me because am
the only one I can ultimately control.
What should a parent do when their child is seemingly out of control? Make
sure they themselves are in the most control possible. So often we focus so much
on the child that we lose control of ourselves, which makes things even worse.
This can occur with the toddler’s tantrum in the restaurant or the teen’s struggles
with promiscuity. Once we’ve brought ourselves under control, however, then it
becomes much easier to respond to our child with wisdom and principled
decisions. Then we can set and enforce consequences. Then we can better
understand what’s emotionally behind our child’s behavior. Most importantly,
we then can see our own role in contributing to our child’s situation.
What do most parents find to be the hardest part about parenting? The
hardest thing for most of us is realizing that our children are separate human
beings. This means having to accept that our kids will continuously make
decisions we simply do not want them to make. Does that mean we practice some
sort of hands-off, aloof parenting? Not at all. It means that all our interaction with
our kids, indeed our whole relationship with each of them, is like interacting with
a stranger we’re just getting to know. Having a deep respect for our child’s
otherness, their differentness, greatly helps us to remain calm and connected at
the same time. It’s when we begin to assume a certain right over our child’s
space that we begin to push them into the very choices we’re hoping they avoid.
How did your view of parenting change once you became a parent? There’s
an old saying that everyone has great parenting theories, and then they have kids.
I did not even begin to develop the ScreamFree approach until I was in training
to become a therapist, and by then I already had both of my kids. I sometimes
shudder to think about what my parenting would have been like without my
training. And that’s a thought that compels me to share the ScreamFree Parenting
vision with every parent on the planet; the vast majority of us are operating in the
dark. People aren’t kidding when they lament that there’s no instructions that
come with a baby, they’re desperately serious!
So how do you bring yourself under control when your kid seems to be out
of control? How do you calm down? Alcohol. And medication (just kidding). If
we wait until the heat of the moment, without making some serious changes to
our thinking and our patterns, then there’s little hope of creating lasting change.
We’ll just have to resort to pale anger management techniques, like counting to
ten or snapping a rubber band. The ScreamFree way is about making some
revolutionary shifts. And choosing to focus on ourselves is the first and most
important shift. And when it comes to making such a shift, people do not need a
“how to” as much as they need a “why to.” My hope is to provide enough vision
to prompt people to truly investigate the “whys” behind their parenting choices,
well before the heat of the moment.
What do you see as the paradox of parenting? We know that parents are a
critical element in shaping the future of kids’ lives. And yet we also know that
for kids to lead the most effective lives, they have to grow themselves into the
most critical element in shaping the future of their lives. So, we have a paradox:
Parents shape kids, and kids shape themselves. This is why we have so much
confusion about the childhood roots of adult dysfunction. Are you a victim of
your parents’ bad choices? Yes, we all are. Are you yet responsible for your own
choices? Yes, we all are. Both are true, and that creates the paradox. The only
way out is to begin with yourself, right now. How do you want to relate with
your kids, regardless of your past influences and their present behavior?
Which situations tend to push parents to react the way they do? The number
one complaint of so many parents is “they just won’t listen to me!” And my
response is always the same. Yes, they do. They hear every word you say. It’s
not that they aren’t listening; it’s that they aren’t obeying. We simply do not
know what to do when our children choose to disobey us, or deliberately ignore
us, or make a ridiculous choice that we know will backfire. And it drives us nuts.
How much privacy should a child have a right to? This is a great question, and
there is no “right” answer. What is most important is asking the question,
because that begins to spur the type of thinking that creates healthy space. Just
asking the question begins to stir within us the idea that our child is a different
human being, a separate person, with thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are
simply not our own. I talk at length about creating space for our children, space
for them to discover themselves and become self-directed. Beginning to create
and then respect their privacy is a critical step.
What is the hardest part about extending more and more space to a child?
The hardest part about creating space for our child is simple: we don’t know what
they’re going to do with it. Are we giving them just enough rope to hang
themselves, or are they going to respond by making authentic choices that have
positive results? If we respect some of their space to make their own decisions,
whether it’s about their feelings or their allowance, then we have to live with
those choices. And those choices could lead to a terrible mistake!! (from our
perspective). What I’ve come to appreciate, by learning to calm my own anxiety,
is the joy of watching them make their own decisions. I get to watch them think
through a decision, like whether to continue yelling even though they know
timeout is coming, or whether to spend their own money on a whimsical
purchase. These are learning experiences that I simply could not teach them
through my words or even my example.
Does your style of parenting work best on a six-year-old or a sixteen-year-
old? Why? ScreamFree parenting is for parents of all ages with kids of all ages
because it is not about kids, it’s about parents. It’s about learning to focus on how
I want to respond, regardless of the age of my child. Now, obviously my
response is going to change as my children grow up. I say “Let the Consequences
Do the Screaming,” which emphasizes granting your child the space to make her
own choices and learn from the consequences of those choices. How much space
you grant her depends on her age and maturity at the time as well as the specific
circumstance. When she’s six, for instance, you are not going to let her learn the
consequence of playing in the street by letting her get hit by a car. But when
she’s sixteen she’ll be driving in the street, with many lessons to be learned
through experience. But there are plenty of opportunities for a six year old to
learn through space as well. Regardless of the age of our children, the principles
are the same, because it’s about us, not them.
How did your parents raise you? To be honest, my childhood was far from
ideal. My parents went through (and took us through) a very messy divorce.
There were other traumatic elements in there as well. What I’ve come to believe
is that my parents did the best they could with what they had available. This does
not excuse them, because, frankly, their best was not nearly good enough. But it
does explain them in a way that has helped me come to a place of understanding,
forgiveness, and now, mutual respect. I now cherish my relationships with both
of my parents. We have talked at length through so many issues, and I have come
to a place of humility because I now know how incredibly difficult it is to be
married and raise a family. I also find myself imitating them and the good things
they did as parents.
How might one’s family change when the parent stops resisting his child and
starts going with his momentum? Whenever we resist our child, we anxiously
are trying to employ some power method over them. And this naturally
encourages their own defensiveness in return. When a parent stops this initial
resistance, however, amazing things begin to occur. A child simply doesn’t know
what to do when a parent doesn’t immediately react. He says “This is boring!”
and his mom responds with empathy, “That stinks. What are you going to do
about it?” This puts the ball back in his court; he can’t fault his mom for his
boredom. Initially, he may double his efforts to rope mom in. But as she
continues to go with the flow, he begins to develop resources that surprise even
mom. He entertains himself, or does his own homework, or cleans his own room.
In short, he starts to become self-directed.
Why should we avoid attaching labels to our children? Why does becoming
a ScreamFree™ Parent mean taking a very hard look at our own anxiety-
driven need to label our child’s tendencies and predict our child’s destiny?
Whenever we label our kids (a good girl, a follower, smart, athletic, pretty,
sweet, a troublemaker), it is always borne out of our anxious need to predict and
categorize. Somehow it helps us feel a little better whenever we can attach some
known category. That way we feel as if we “know” our child like no one else.
What we miss is how powerful those labels can be in actually restricting our
child’s space to be anything different. A child who’s labeled smart has to always
live up to that (and cannot make a mistake). A child labeled a troublemaker
continues to behave so because everyone around him begins to expect it.
How do you balance protecting your kids from life’s dangers and yet
exposing them to life’s lessons? This is the central question that governs the
balance of space and place. It is my responsibility to my kids to grant them both.
That means I have to respect the area over their life that is totally theirs. That
means I also have to let them know what area of their life is not up to them,
where their space ends. This is their place. This means discerning when to let
them taste the full brunt of their decisions and when to soften the blow, or when
to disallow them the possibility of making certain, more life changing, decisions.
This is finding the balance of protection and exposure. The tricky part is that
there is no “correct” answer. The key is to continually ask the question with each
new situation, with each kid, at every age.
What are some mistakes you would actually like to see your child commit? I
believe mistakes are the path to wisdom for those willing to be decisive. Being
decisive means taking charge of your own life, and that means making both good
and bad decisions. Both are educational and both get your life moving. So, I like
for my children to make mistakes that teach them without hurting too much. Like
spending too much of their allowance on a frivolous item. Or leaving their
belongings out at night, only to find them stolen the next day. Or yelling at me or
my wife and discovering that we have feelings that can get hurt. Or learning that
correcting their friends in public makes them very unpopular. These are
experiences that penetrate their development and indelibly shape their future
decisions.
Why is “friendship parenting” not a healthy model? I am not of the belief that
we should never be friends with our kids. We love our kids, and love to be
around our kids (sometimes). We even begin to learn from our kids. This has all
the makings of a good friendship, as long as it is borne of desire, not need. But
when our own need for friendship infects our parenting relationship, we begin to
erode our own authority. We shoot ourselves in the foot when we need our
children to like us, to want to be around us, and to learn from us. At that point we
cannot make principled decisions. What our children need most is for us to not
need them. That way they are free to explore all the ranges of human emotions
without needing to make us feel good. And that frees us to make unpopular, yet
principled, decisions.
If you don’t scream or lose control on occasion, how is a child to know his or
her limits and understand which issue or behaviors really are taboo? Part of
the problem is that once you start down the path of reactivity, you begin to get
short term results. The kids eventually comply just to avoid the parent’s wrath.
But soon the parent has to escalate their reactivity to get the same compliance.
This is not a method for building a lasting relationship of positive influence.
When these parents hear of the ScreamFree path, they initially protest: “If I don’t
scream, then they won’t ever listen to me!” The business side of parenting calls
for us to let our child know his place. This means setting and enforcing limits to
their choices. When the child inevitably crosses the line, that’s the time to “Let
the Consequences Do the Screaming.” I don’t need to scream when there are
logical consequences to do the “limits teaching” job for me.
What do you commonly find your clients are overwhelmed by when it comes
to being a parent? The biggest stress about being a parent seems to be the very
nature of raising independent creatures, with minds and lives of their own.
Despite all of our manipulative control and reactive measures we take, our
children still defy us and make decisions we wish they wouldn’t make. And we
don’t know what to do about it except try harder to control them. Which, of
course, makes things worse. Add to this daily consternation all the stresses of life
(especially marriage!), and you’ve got the makings for an overwhelmed parent.
What’s amazing about what I do, though, is that I get to see amazing
transformations occur throughout the whole family when parents simply choose
to focus on themselves and calm down.
Hal Runkel, MS, LMFT
ScreamFree Parenting
Biography
Hal Edward Runkel, MS, MMFT, LMFT, is America’s newest expert on family
relationships.
A licensed marriage and family therapist, relationship coach, seminar speaker,
and organizational consultant, Hal is the founder and president of ScreamFree
Living, Inc., and the author of a new book, ScreamFree Parenting.
He is the father of two children, Hannah and Brandon, and practices at home
what he’s preached to hundreds of parenting patients and families.
Hal, with two masters’ degrees, has taken the most advanced approaches to
family relationship theory and, through thousands of hours of family and child
therapy, developed the revolutionary ScreamFree Living methodology to
revitalize relationships and bring a renewed sense of joy, love, and care to
families. Hal now presents the ScreamFree relationship programs to audiences
nationwide through teleconferences, Web seminars, newsletters, and training
classes.
Over the past 5 years, Hal has had multiple media appearances on television and
radio and and been written up in hundreds of newspapers and magazines. Among
his many appearances are:
• Four times on NBC’s The Today Show
• Two appearances on The 700 Club
• Two years as the weekly “Therapist” on CW Network’s The Daily Buzz
• Regular guest on NBC’s Nationally Syndicated iVillage Live
• Dozens of appearances on top TV stations in markets nationwide,
including View from the Bay, Good Things Utah, Good Day, Good Morning
Texas, Fox’s Good Day Dallas, Good Day Atlanta.
• Weekly guest on Salt Lake City’s number 1 radio station, KZHT FM
• Twice on nationally syndicated The Bob and Sheri Show
• Hundreds of guest appearances on radio stations nationwide
National print media coverage included articles in Good Housekeeping and
Woman’s Day among others.
Hal, with his wife Jenny, has recently launched a weekly radio show on
America’s top AM talk radio station, News-Talk AM750 WSB Radio in Atlanta.
ScreamFree Radio is currently broadcasted in the Atlanta market.
He has presented education workshops on various subjects at regional, national,
and international conferences, as well as a variety of church/community settings.
Subjects include: organizational dynamics, addictive behaviors, parenting skills,
anger management, psychological and human systems assessment, and small
group and team processes. He’s spoken before the Christian Association for
Psychological Studies, the Texas Association for Marriage & Family Therapy
Annual Conference, and other leading organizations and events.
Hal is a member of the Family Firm Institute, the American Association for
Marriage and Family Therapy, and the Georgia Association for Marriage and
Family Therapy. Before starting ScreamFree Living, Hal served as a staff
therapist and director of education for the Covenant Counseling Institute in
Snellville, Georgia.
The Houston native and Greater Atlanta resident earned his Masters in Marriage
and Family Therapy (MMFT) in August 2000 from Abilene Christian University.
His M.S. in Theological Studies was awarded in 1998.
Hal is raising his children with his wife of 14 years, Jenny.
For more information, please consult: www.screamfree.com
8 Ways To Create Space For
Each Of Your Children “Children need physical space and emotional space,” says Hal Runkel, LMFT,
author of ScreamFree Parenting. “Without space to learn their own likes and
dislikes, without space to make their own mistakes, our kids continue to live a
borrowed life and it leaves them with but two choices—fight against everyone’s
efforts to determine their life (the rebellious child) or simply defer to everyone
around them (the passive, robotic child).”
When you are ready to start calming your own anxiety and creating more space
for your children, Hal offers these practical ways:
1. Respect their space and privacy. Starting as soon as you can calm
your anxiety about letting them close the door to their room, make it a
practice to always ask or knock before entering their room (or if they’re in
the bathroom), and wait to hear their response. If they say “No,” then tell
them you’ll come back later and ask again.
2. Calm your anxiety about their messy room. If it is “their” room, then
let them keep it the way they want. Tell them that twice a year, for
biological reasons, the entire house is going to be thoroughly cleansed and
that includes their room. In between those times, let their room be theirs.
3. Respect their choices. Give your child an allowance appropriate for her
age and then let her spend it any way she chooses. Even if you can only
afford a single cent, it is the principle that counts. Go ahead and teach her
about different options (investing, spending, giving), but don’t expect her
to take care of her money any better than you do. When we give our
children money, we give up the right to determine how that money is used.
It isn’t really theirs if we’re going to tell them how to spend it.
4. Calm your anxiety by giving up your need to know how they feel.
Most of the time, kids simply do not know how they feel (the same is true
for most adults). Your anxious need for them to know just makes it more
difficult. Paradoxically, the less you need to know, the more they end up
telling you. This doesn’t mean neglect any concern about their feelings—
this is about being calm and connected at the same time. So inquire about
their feelings and show interest in helping them learn to express
themselves. But let go of your need to make sure they feel the “right” way,
which is nothing more than the way you think they should feel and is
usually about your anxiety about your own feelings.
5. Similarly, give up your need to know “why.” Asking any child, from
toddler to teenager, to account for his motivation at the time of his mistake
is a fruitless exercise. He simply does not know most of the time. And your
need to know is much more about you than it is about him. Again, learn to
be interested without being anxious, and you’ll be amazed at what your
kids will tell you.
6. Let them struggle. Always answering your child’s questions, or
constantly telling your child what to do to solve a problem, is denying that
child the chance to develop her own skills of discovery and innovation.
First ask her what she thinks should be done. Find out what she’s basing
her conclusions on. Stay calm no matter what, even when they’re hurting.
While staying close by, let them hurt and begin to figure things out for
themselves. And again, prepare to be amazed.
7. Allow your kids to disagree with you and learn to respect their
arguments. This is incredibly difficult for anxious parents, but allowing
(and even encouraging) your child to disagree with you creates a profound
mutual respect in the parent/child relationship.
8. Rarely look your kids in the eye when talking with them. I know this
sounds absurd and even heretical. Eye-to-eye conversations are incredibly
intimate, however, and bring about high levels of vulnerability. Thus,
these types of conversations lend themselves to patterns of intimidation
and defensiveness. Yes, there are times, sweet and nurturing as well as
stern and serious, when it is very helpful to address eye to eye. But these
times are rare. Use them sparingly. Often the most intimate conversations
between a parent and child occur while doing a common activity, be it
driving, shopping, fishing, or playing a game.
Can You Be A ScreamFree™ Parent? ScreamFree™ Parenting shifts the focus of our parenting with one simple
principle, that parenting is not about the child, it is about the parents. A new
parenting author suggests that by choosing to focus on ourselves, grow ourselves
up, and calm ourselves down, we no longer relate with our children out of our
deepest fears, but rather our of our highest principles.
“The vast majority of parenting books and seminars are child-focused and
technique-oriented,” says Hal Runkel, LMFT, “centering on how to change your
child’s heart, behavior, etc. The problem with this material is it just exacerbates
the problem. Parents get reactively focused on their kids. ScreamFree™
Parenting is worlds away from the ordinary parenting material. “
Parents seeking to unburden themselves and to instead empower themselves,
seek out this style of parenting. Parents see their roles and their family
relationships in a new dynamic, as a result.
Essentially, to stay in control of your emotions is the basis for ScreamFree™
Parenting. “Sure it’s easier said than done,” says Rankel, author of a new book,
ScreamFree™ Parenting, “but this hard work pays off.”
So how does the ScreamFree™ Parenting raise responsible, loving, and faith-
filled children? Here are six key points:
1. Give your child physical and emotional space -- see children as individuals
in their own right, with their own lives, decisions, and futures.
2. Don’t preach or threaten—let the consequences of a child’s choice do the
screaming.
3. Be an advocate for your child’s development and evolution.
4. Change your vocabulary—don’t label children or pigeonhole how they see
themselves. Labels can be very destructive—avoid them at all costs.
5. See yourself as being responsible to your children—not for them.
6. Know that the greatest thing you as a parent can do for your kids is learn
to focus on yourself.
He notes kids want parents to remain unflappable even when they flip out.
“By calming down and still remaining connected to your kids, you begin to
operate less out of your deepest fears and more out of your highest principles,
transforming your relationships in the process,” says Runkel.
4 Rules To Keeping Your Sanity
When It Comes To Discipline “Being consistent as a parent will help maintain stability in your world,” says Hal
Runkel, LMFT, and the author of ScreamFree™ Parenting. ”Be consistent and
it becomes easier to remain ScreamFree. And in turn, remaining ScreamFree
makes it easier to remain consistent.” Here are some principles to help guide your
way:, especially when it comes to disciplining your child:
1. Don’t Ever Set a Consequence That Is Tougher For You To Enforce
Than It Is For Them to Endure. How serious can you possibly be by
grounding your teen-age daughter for two months? Are you crazy? Do you
really think it’s possible to baby-sit her that long? When we overextend
ourselves, it becomes that much easier to cave in when the emotional
pressure hits. And thus, we break our promises and we break the finely knit
fabric of trust.
2. There Are No Shortcuts To Setting Or Enforcing Consequences.
Providing consistent discipline for our children is always time-consuming,
sometimes exhausting and never done from afar. That’s right, it’s supposed
to be difficult. Reflect on the times when you have been consistent, when you
have followed through. I guarantee you’ve been able to do it more than you
think you have. Keep it going.
3. Only Choose Consequences You Are Willing to Enforce. What you do
is not nearly as important as how and why. A ScreamFree Parent never does
something she doesn’t want to do. You are an adult and you make every
choice you make. If you spank without wanting to, then you need to focus on
yourself some more. Why would you choose consequence for your child if
you did not want to choose it? Because he needed it? For what? Behavior
modification? To calm him down? To show him who’s boss? Again, I’m not
saying spanking is necessarily bad. I’m saying in order for any enforced
consequence to have its desired effect, it needs to come from the solid,
principled decision of its enforcer. If you’re wishy-washy about spanking,
that will get communicated very clearly.
4. Only Choose Consequences You Are Willing To Endure Yourself. We
cannot expect our kids to handle the consequences of their choices any better
than we do. So often we anxiously want our kids to learn lessons we have yet
to master. Welcoming consequences into your home means welcoming them
for yourself, and even letting your kids watch. Take your kids to traffic court
and let them watch you take your medicine from the judge. I promise it
becomes easier to enforce consequences when you yourself know how
beneficial they can be for your own growth.
Ask Hal
Below are typical situations parents confront every day across America. Hal
Runkel, LMFT, and author of ScreamFree™ Parenting, shows us how to
implement a ScreamFree™ solution.
I want my child to feel she can see me as a friend but I at the same time I
need to wear other hats such as the disciplinarian. How can I balance the
two? This refers to Jamie Rasor’s two sides of parenting: the personal side
(loving affection, play, sharing feelings) and the business side (scheduling,
discipline, negotiating privileges). Both sides are vital to a great parenting
relationship, and thus both sides must be present within each parent. The way to
balance the two begins with focusing on you. What do you like about the
personal side? Is there an emotional need you are seeking there? What’s the
hardest part about the business side? Do you fear she won’t like you as much?
One key is realizing that your kids not only need both sides from you, they are
actually seeking both from you. They don’t want you to just be affectionate, they
want you to provide structure. Another key is keeping the two sides separate. A
business transaction (like enforcing a disciplinary action) is not cause for you
getting so upset that you can’t be around her. Let her know, through your calm,
that her misbehavior demands discipline but it doesn’t mean you’re angry. When
you exercise both roles separately, you’ll be amazed at the mutually respectful
relationship growing between you.
My nine-year old child doesn’t seem to make doing his homework a priority.
Sometimes he misses deadlines on assignments. I just want to sit there and
watch that he completes his schoolwork. Is this the best strategy? Not if you
want his homework to become his priority. The homework battle seems to plague
every house in the world. This is because we as a society put so much stock in
the education process. But the problem has very little to do with school.
Homework just happens to provide a very convenient territory on which to battle
for control. Whose life is this? That’s the real question here. We parents are
reluctant to give over this area of life to our children because we fear they will
never take it as seriously as they need to (or we need them to).
We then allow this fear to shape our vision of the future, wondering if they’ll
ever get an education, if they’ll ever get a job, and so on. So, we think, we had
better nip this lack of motivation thing right in the bud, right now, by forcing
them to do homework and get good grades, even if it means hovering over them
every night until they’re eighteen! What inevitably happens, however, is that we
actually prevent them from ever adopting their education as their own. As long as
we feel responsible for them and their education (which we equate with their
whole future!), then they never feel responsible for themselves. But when we can
calm our anxiety about their school, then we can be responsible to them in new
ways.
This means offering to help but only if they request it. This means inquiring
about progress but in the same way we might ask a friend about how their job is
going. This means pursuing our own life and our own continuing education.
My 14-year-old has begun to get out with his friends a lot and I don’t feel
like we talk as much as we used to. And when we do talk we seem to argue
or clash. How can I improve things? Your son is beginning to launch away
from you into adulthood. This can be a dizzying time for everyone involved. One
minute a teen can be shyly dependent, and another minute later openly defiant.
One minute a parent can be excited about his child’s development, and the next
scared to death. What’s important is for you to calmly realize what’s happening:
your son is launching out on his own. The last thing he needs is a parent who
anxiously needs him to stay young. Right now he sees you as an enemy of his
launching process. What needs to happen is for you to become the architect of it.
How can you encourage him toward more freedom and responsibility? While
never caving on what boundaries you believe are necessary, how can you
increase his freedom within those boundaries?
Believe it or not, the best way you can do that is to begin to focus more on
yourself. He’s growing up; what are you starting to pursue with your increasing
free time, now that he doesn’t require as much supervision? What plans are you
beginning to make for your life as he begins to leave?
My 11-year-old tends to leave her door shut, spending hours on the phone or
doing who knows what. Should I force her to keep the door open? What is
your greatest fear about the closed door? Drugs? Internet predators? Are these
fears justified? Have you seen signs that she’s getting into trouble? If so, then
address those concerns in a calm conversation while shopping.
What’s ironic is the more you worry about it, though, the more it will become a
problem. What can you do to actually celebrate her newfound sense of privacy?
In a ScreamFree way, make a simple comment that you think it’s great that she
values her room and having her own space. No questions about it, no lingering to
see her response. Just make the observation, that’s it. You might be amazed at
both her confusion over your respect and her new desire to let you into more of
her life. Again, it’s critical to become the force behind our child’s burgeoning
individuality, not the force against it.
What can I do about my eight-year-old son, who cannot seem to go to bed on
time without him throwing a temper tantrum? The thing about bedtime is that
it comes at the end of the day (duh, right?). What that means is that when we are
at our most exhausted, they are, too. So, when we most need them to go to bed
(so we can have a few moments of peace and quiet), they are at their most
reactively independent (you cannot make me sleep!!). Naturally, we have
competing interests here.
Just recognizing this will help you understand the situation, and give you a
clearer head about what to do. It will also help you withstand the tantrum. When
the tantrum no longer bothers you, it will no longer captivate him (he’ll probably
move on to other stall tactics). What is usually the thing to do in a situation like
that is the thing we least want to do, slow down. Slow down your speech, your
movements, lower your volume. If you want to set some consequences for not
going to bed on time, then do so calmly. If you want to grant him some space to
stay up in his bed, do so without regret or resentment. The goal here is to not let
his tantrum create one of your own, but rather respond in a calm and connected
way.
My teen-age son is beginning to talk back and use language I don’t want to
hear. How do I get him to speak in a respectful tone? You don’t, because you
can’t get him to do anything he doesn’t want to do. And that’s what you really
want; you want him to decide on his own not to talk that way. So here’s the
question to ask yourself: Why would he want to change and start talking more
respectfully? What would motivate him to do so?
If you’re able to do so with calm curiosity, then ask him that very question.
Reveal to him your confusion about his new language and tone and ask him what
he gets out of it. What is most critical is not his reply, however, but rather your
tone. Ask him in an anxious, need to know manner and you’ll just create more of
the same attitude. Ask him with calm interest, however, like you would ask a
new friend, and you’ll create the possibility for something different.
Your son is a unique human being from you, and he is making a choice to speak
in a way that you both know irritates you. Inquire about it with genuine curiosity,
let go of your need to change him, and watch how he evolves. You might be
amazed at what happens next.
My youngest daughter can’t seem to get anywhere on time. I just want to
schedule her day for her but then I feel exhausted looking after her every
hour of the day. What should I do? Sounds like you’ve been doing some good
thinking about this, because you realize you cannot run her life without
exhausting yours. So ask yourself a question—how did you learn to be punctual?
Most likely it came through experience, the negative consequences of being late
and the positive results of organized living. So what is getting in the way of your
daughter learning those same experiential lessons?
Most likely, it’s your own anxious need to make her punctual. This has
undoubtedly become a battle between the two of you, which means it’s not really
about being late. This battle is about whose life belongs to whom. Your daughter
is exercising a form of power over her own life (stalling) that is drastically
affecting your life. Since you both have to be somewhere at a certain time, her
stalling creates problems for everyone involved. This is an immature power
struggle, not a personality defect.
The first step is learning to calm your anxiety about her choices (letting her learn
of the negative consequences of being late, be it missed school or delayed fun
times). The second is to concentrate more on your own schedule than hers. This
doesn’t mean ignoring her needs, but it does mean refusing to compromise
yourself in order to accommodate for her tardiness.
Our two children – one is 8, the other 10 – have questioned everything of
late. They won’t even go to church with us. I don’t want to force religion on
them but I feel they’re missing out. How should I proceed? You actually
sound less anxious than most parents facing this dilemma. Some anxiously
religious parents simply cannot handle questions from their kids. They view such
questions as nothing less than threats to the family’s way of life, so they redouble
their efforts to get their children to believe (or at least attend without a fuss).
The best thing parents can do is pursue their own spiritual growth and worry less
about their child’s. Only then can parents become a sought-after resource for
their children as they struggle with faith, doubt, and questioning all of existence.
And that should be the goal: becoming a trusted guide through the struggles of
life, one who allows, even encourages questioning and experimentation within
certain boundaries. So applaud your kids’ doubts and genuinely listen and try to
learn from them as separate travelers on the earth. Showing them that respect,
while calmly pursuing your own growth, will blow them away.
ScreamFree™ Parenting Excerpts
What Kids Need
“What every kid wants are parents who can keep their cool, even when things get
hot. Kids want parents who are far less anxious and far more level headed than
they are. Your kids want you to remain unflappable, even when they flip out. As
it turns out, that’s exactly what they need.”
Parenting Paradox
“So we have a paradox. Parents shape their children. Children shape themselves.
Both are true. My answer to this paradox is not to eliminate it, but rather embrace
it by changing one small preposition. We are not responsible for our children; we
are responsible to them.”
Let Children Choose
“Children are not machines or pets and parents are neither their operators nor
their owners. When it comes to relationships, we cannot ever guarantee or control
that end we desire. While working toward the end, we must let go of the need to
achieve it. That’s the paradox and this is frustrating…The more I focus on the
results I desire, the less chance my child has of authentically choosing that result
for herself. The more it becomes my goal, the less room she has to discover her
own goal.
Be a Calming Authority
“As you become a calming authority, your influence begins to shift. Instead of
shaping your family system with your anxiety, creating the kind of relationships
you’re hoping to avoid, you begin to influence with the absence of your anxiety.
Your calm presence empowers you to become more available as an inspiration to
your child, which engenders profound levels of trust and influence.”
Give ‘em Place and Space
“Place let us know where our freedom stops and someone else’s freedom begins.
Boundaries are both freeing and limiting. In fact, freedom without limitation
would be disastrous. Space without place would be anarchy, no rules, no way to
determine right or wrong, no means of discerning good guys from bad guys, no
possibility of protection against predators, no way to order life at all. On the other
hand, place without space has no allowance for free choice, emotional
expression, disagreement or exploration.”
Avoid Emotional Reactivity
“Let me say that again: emotional reactivity is our worst enemy when it comes to
heaving great relationships. If you don’t get anything else from this book, get
this: our biggest struggle as parents is not with the television; it’s not with bad
influences; it’s not even with drugs or alcohol. Our biggest struggle as parents is
with our own emotional reactivity. That’s why this greatest thing we can do for
our kids is learn to focus on us, not them. Let’s concentrate on what we can
control – calming our own emotional, knee-jerk reactions.”