Imagine walking out of your bedroom on the second floor and seeing your 2-year-old climbing the outside of the staircase. That’s happened to Hal Runkel, marriage and family therapist and bestselling author of ScreamFree Parenting.
“My son looked up at me with a smile and said, ‘Hi, Daddy!’” says Runkel. “He was over five feet off the ground. My anxiety level was off the charts, but I knew if I gave in to that anxiety, if I yelled or lunged for him, it would increase his chances of falling.”
From biting or refusing to eat to asking about sex or learning to drive, our kids are constantly testing our anxiety. More often than not, Runkel says, parents fail those tests by “screaming.”
Anxiety says we need to control our kids.
“If you’re like me, the more you try to control your kids, the more out of control they become, and the more out of control I become,” Runkel says. “If you are yelling at your kids, you are saying, ‘Calm me down. I need you to change your behavior so I can change mine.’ When parents learn to manage their anxiety and teach children tools to manage their own behavior, more young people will be prepared to launch into the real world. We have to remember: the goal is not to protect our kids to calm our anxiety; our goal as parents is to prepare our kids to live a productive life without us.”
Who’s In Control?
Runkel believes that good parenting is about learning how to take back our emotional remote control. He says that when we scream, we’ve lost control of the situation and handed the emotional remote control to the least mature person in the household.
“When parents focus on becoming ‘ScreamFree,’ calming their own emotional reactivity, they begin to make parenting decisions out of their highest principles instead of reacting out of their deepest fears,” Runkel says. “There are specific ways parents can do this, such as:
- See children as individuals with their own lives, decisions and futures.
- Don’t preach or threaten. Let the consequences of a child’s choices do the screaming.
- Change your vocabulary. Avoid labeling children or pigeonholing how they see themselves. Labels can be very destructive.
- See yourself as being responsible to your children – not for them. When your child throws a temper tantrum in Walmart, you’re not responsible for it. You ARE responsible for how you handle it.
What do kids want?
According to Runkel, they want parents who can keep their cool, even when things get heated… parents who are less prone to knee-jerk reactions and more level-headed.
Runkel’s message is making a difference. For example, when Runkel and his family were eating out once, a young waitress recognized him from an appearance on The Today Show. Through tears, she said, “Thank you for giving me my parents back. They heard you on television, bought your book, and now we just don’t fight as much. They respect me, and I respect them.”
Ready for more on how to stop yelling at your kids? Go to screamfree.com!
Other blogs:
My Spouse and I Disagree About Parenting
How a Parent’s Emotions Can Affect Their Child
5 Ways Positive Parenting Creates a Lifelong Connection With Your Child
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