Tag Archive for: Communication

How to Stop Yelling at Your Kids

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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Kindness: The Superpower Everyone Can Use

Being kind has the power to transform every relationship.

“What if you don’t respect or appreciate your spouse?”

That’s the question a woman asked social researcher Shaunti Feldhahn after she spoke at a conference on the topic of kindness.

Feldhahn encouraged her to take a 30-day Kindness Challenge. The steps are:

  • Say nothing negative about that person – either to them or about them.
  • Each day, find one positive thing to praise or affirm about that person. Then tell them and tell someone else. 
  • Each day, do one small act of kindness or generosity for them.
  • You may or may not choose to tell the person you chose about the challenge.

Three years later, the same woman approached Feldhahn and said, “You won’t remember me, but I asked you a question three years ago about what to do if you don’t respect or appreciate your spouse. I decided to take you up on the Kindness Challenge and I learned a lot about myself. I had no idea how unkind I was to my husband, and I thought it was all him. As I was kind to him, his defenses lowered. Three years later, we have a great marriage.”

“What I have found based on my research is that when kindness starts to flow, it is really incredible,” says Feldhahn. “It’s actually a real-life superpower. For years, I’ve been studying what makes people thrive. And I’ve seen that whether or not we thrive in relationships is far more related to how we treat others than how we ourselves are treated.”

Feldhahn believes kindness is the answer in any difficult situation.

“This means being kind when you are super-irritated and you really don’t want to be,” Feldhahn shares. “Even in situations where you need boundaries, that is usually the kindest thing you can do. If someone is being abusive, for example, it is not kind to allow that person to continue to destroy their own emotional state by being that way.”

For her book, The Kindness Challenge, Feldhahn surveyed study participants extensively before and after the 30-day period.

After completing the challenge, 89 percent of all relationships had improved, 74 percent felt more love and affection for their romantic partner, and 66 percent felt more love and appreciation by their romantic partner.

“One of the biggest surprises from the research was that most of us already think we are kind,” Feldhahn says. “In fact, most of us are totally delusional. We have no idea how often we are unkind without even realizing it. In the book, we identify seven patterns of unkindness and negativity – and every one of us has at least one of them! We encourage everyone to identify their own pattern of negativity – because in most cases it is a pattern across all relationships, not just that one.”

The Challenge opened participants’ eyes very quickly to that reality, and it showed them that they also weren’t as affirming to the other person as they thought. It also changed their feelings, to appreciate the person more.

As Feldhahn put it, “That only makes sense, right? After all, if you’re irritated with someone, and you tell them that you’re irritated, and you tell someone else that you’re irritated, are you doing to be more or less irritated?”

We all know the answer to that. Just as we know that we’ll simply notice the positive more if we’re looking for it. And while being kind doesn’t take away problems, it often makes them easier to solve.

Feldhahn wants the Challenge to transform relationships.

“It’s really life-changing,” Feldhahn suggests. “It is a training ground to become a truly kind person. You have to designate one person to do the challenge for. But it can be anyone – your spouse, child, friend, in-law, co-worker, anybody.”

Like the woman who didn’t respect or appreciate her spouse, the outcome is a pleasant surprise for many Challenge-takers after 30 days.

If you’d like to try it for yourself, you can find out more at jointhekindnesschallenge.com. The outcome just might surprise you, too.

***If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, contact the National Hotline for Domestic Abuse. At this link, you can access a private chat with someone who can help you 24/7. If you fear that someone is monitoring your computer or device, call the hotline 24/7 at 1−800−799−7233. For a clear understanding of what defines an abusive relationship, click here.***

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Keys to Effective Communication in Marriage

Improving your skills is great for your relationship!

What are the keys to effective communication? Well, research on what makes marriage work shows that happy and healthy couples have a ratio of 5:1 positive to negative behaviors in their relationship.1This means there are five times as many positive interactions between happy couples (i.e., listening, validating the other person, using soft words, expressing appreciation, affirmation, physical affection, compliments, etc.) as there are negative (i.e., raising one’s voice, stating a complaint, or expressing one’s anger).

Tips for improving the effectiveness of communication in your relationship:

Be intentional about spending time together.

Couples often spend very little time in meaningful conversation throughout the week. To change this, turn off the technology and make it a point to spend 20-30 minutes a day catching up with each other.

Use more “I” statements and less “You” statements.2

This decreases the chances of your spouse feeling like they need to defend themselves. For example, “I wish you would acknowledge more often how much work I do at home to take care of you and the children.”

Be specific.

When issues arise, be specific. Broad generalizations like, “You do it all the time!” are not helpful.

Avoid mind-reading.

It is very frustrating when someone else acts like they know better than you what you were really thinking.

Express negative feelings constructively.

There will be times when you feel bitterness, resentment, disappointment or disapproval. These feelings need to be communicated in order for change to occur. But how you express these thoughts is critical. It’s one thing to say, “I am really disappointed that you are working late again tonight.” But if you say, “You clearly do not care one whit about me or the kids. If you did, you would not work late every night,” will convey something entirely different.

You’ve had conversations with your spouse, even arguments, and maybe straight-up fights about this issue or that problem, BUT those interactions often don’t lead to any solutions. But why is that exactly?

Join us for this 20-minute webinar to find out!

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Listen without being defensive.

For a marriage to succeed, both spouses must be able to hear each other’s complaints without getting defensive. This is much harder than learning how to express negative feelings effectively.

Freely express positive feelings.

Most people are quicker to express negative feelings than positive ones. It is vital to the health of your marriage that you affirm your spouse. Positive feelings such as appreciation, affection, respect, admiration, and approval are like making deposits into your love account. You should have five positive deposits for every one negative. If your compliments exceed your complaints, your spouse will pay attention to your grievances. If your complaints exceed your compliments, your criticism will fall on deaf ears.

Sources: 

1Gottman, J.M., & Levenson, R.W. (1999). What Predicts Change in Marital Interaction Over Time? A Study of Alternative Models. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.1999.00143.x 
2Rogers, S. L., et al. (2018). I understand you feel that way, but I feel this way: the benefits of I-language and communicating perspective during conflict. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4831

***If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, contact the National Hotline for Domestic Abuse. At this link, you can access a private chat with someone who can help you 24/7. If you fear that someone is monitoring your computer or device, call the hotline 24/7 at: 1−800−799−7233. For a clear understanding of what defines an abusive relationship, click here.***

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Top 10 Strengths of Happy Marriages

Talk with your spouse about this list.

David H. Olson, founder of Life Innovations and one of the creators of the Prepare/Enrich marriage enrichment tools, has surveyed 21,501 married couples in all 50 states to identify the top ten strengths of happy marriages.

Research shows the strongest couples are those who have strong communication skills, a clear sense of closeness as a couple, flexibility, personal compatibility and good conflict management skills.

In strong marriages, there is a balance between separateness and togetherness. These couples make togetherness a top priority, ask each other for help, like doing things together, and spend most of their free time together.

  1. Partners are satisfied with communication.
  2. Partners handle their differences creatively.
  3. They feel very close to each other.
  4. Spouses are not controlling.
  5. Partners discuss their problems well.
  6. They are satisfied with the affection they show and receive in the marriage.
  7. There is a good balance of time alone and together.
  8. Family and friends rarely interfere.
  9. Partners agree on how to spend money.
  10. Partners agree on spiritual beliefs.

***If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, contact the National Hotline for Domestic Abuse. At this link, you can access a private chat with someone who can help you 24/7. If you fear that someone is monitoring your computer or device, call the hotline 24/7 at: 1−800−799−7233. For a clear understanding of what defines an abusive relationship, click here.***

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