ScreamFree Parenting
The Revolutionary Approach to Raising Your Kids by Keeping Your Cool
By Hal Edward Runkel (Broadway Books, $21.95)
Are you a parent who feels overstretched, overcommitted, underprepared and underappreciated to the point you want to scream? Don’t, says the therapist author. Remain calm and your kids will, eventually, calm down themselves. Of course, those who need this book most will be hard-pressed to find the time to read it.
1. ScreamFree is “learning to relate with others in a calm, cool, and connected way, taking hold of your own emotional responses no matter how anyone else chooses to behave; learning to focus on yourself and take care of yourself for the world’s benefit.”
2. Our culture has switched from the “seen and not heard” approach to children to the opposite, in which we obsess about kids’ well-being to everyone’s detriment.
3. As a parent, your emotional reaction to a situation is up to you. You always have a choice of how to react.
4. “What children need most is for their parents to be the first ones who see them as individuals in their own right, with their own lives and decisions and futures.”
5. Consistency is key; impart to your kids that actions always have consequences.
