“The key to good parenting depends on you, because you are the one you can ultimately control,” says Hal Runkel, a family therapist and parenting expert and he’s written a book to show parents how they can have a more peaceful and calm house. The book is called ScreamFree Parenting: Raising Your Kids By Keeping Your Cool, and in it he says that if parents behave, even when our kids are misbehaving, we increase the chance of positively impacting the situation. And he says this is true of any situation.
According to Runkel, as a ScreamFree Parent™, you will learn to let go of the need to be a perfect parent and realize that the truth of the matter is we don’t have to know all the right answers at all the right times for us to be a good parent. We also have to learn to calm down. Our goal should be learning to focus on calming our own “emotional reactivity.” In doing so we teach our kids how to do the same thing when they are faced with trying situations.
Some of the principles he outlines in the book include:
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.
How to give your kids enough freedom to make mistakes, or even hate you.
He also advises that kids should be raised to make their own decisions and to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. When kids do make mistakes, as they inevitably will, parents should be there for them without getting angry or screaming. His technique shows parents how to teach their children to learn through the consequences of their mistakes and to “stay cool, calm and connected” during the process.
Runkel also says that parenting is not actually about the kids but about the parents. “The greatest thing we can do for our kids is learn to focus on ourselves. 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,” says Runkel.