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Screamfree Parenting: The Revolutionary Approach to Raising Your Kids by Keeping Your Cool [Paperback]

Hal Edward Runkel
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (207 customer reviews)

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Book Description

August 19, 2008
You Can Start a Revolution in Your Family . . . Tonight

ScreamFree Parenting is not just about lowering your voice. It’s about learning to calm your emotional reactions and learning to focus on your own behavior more than your kids’ behavior . . . for their benefit. Our biggest enemy as parents is not the TV, the Internet, or even drugs. Our biggest enemy is our own emotional reactivity. When we say we “lost it” with our kids, the “it” in that sentence is our own adulthood. And then we wonder why our kids have so little respect for us, why our kids seem to have all the power in the family.

It’s time to do it differently. And you can. You can start to create and enjoy the types of calm, mutually respectful, and loving relationships with your kids that you’ve always craved. You can begin to revolutionize your family, starting tonight.

Parenting is not about kids, it’s about parents.
If you’re not in control, then you cannot be in charge.
What every kid really needs are parents who are able to keep their cool no matter what.

Easier said than done? Not anymore, thanks to ScreamFree Parenting, the principle-based approach that’s inspiring parents everywhere to truly revolutionize their family dynamics. Moving beyond the child-centered, technique-based approaches that ultimately fail, the ScreamFree way compels you to:

focus on yourself
calm yourself down, and
grow yourself up

By staying calm and connected with your kids, you begin to operate less out of your deepest fears and more out of your highest principles, revolutionizing your relationships in the process.

ScreamFree Parenting
is not just another parenting book. It’s the first parenting
book that maintains—from beginning to end—that parenting is NOT about kids . . . it’s about parents. As parents pay more attention to controlling their own behavior instead of their kids’ behavior, the result is stronger, more rewarding, and more fulfilling family relationships.

For those of you reading who are parents, know parents, or have had parents, the notion that the greatest thing you can do for your children is to learn to focus on yourself may sound strange, even heretical. It’s not. Here’s why: we are the only ones we can control. We cannot control our kids—we cannot control the behavior of any other human being. And yet, so many “experts” keep giving us more tools (“techniques”) to help us try to do just that. And, of course, the more we try to control, the more out of control our children become.

“Don’t make me come up there.” “Don’t make me pull this car over.” “How many times do I have to tell you?” Even our language suggests that our kids have control over us.
It’s no wonder that we end up screaming. Or shutting down. Or simply giving up. And the charts, refrigerator magnets, family meetings, and other techniques in most typical parenting books just don’t work. They end up making us feel more frustrated and more powerless in this whole parenting thing.

This practical, effective guide for parents of all ages with kids of all ages introduces proven principles for overcoming the anxieties and stresses of parenting and setting new patterns of connection and cooperation. Well-written in an engaging, conversational tone, the book is sensible, straightforward, and based on the experiences of hundreds of actual families. It will help all parents become calming authorities in their homes, bring peace to their families today, and give kids what they need to grow into caring, self-directed adults tomorrow.

Best Value

Buy Positive Discipline for Preschoolers: For Their Early Years--Raising Children Who are Responsible, Respectful, and Resourceful (Positive Discipline Library) and get Screamfree Parenting: The Revolutionary Approach to Raising Your Kids by Keeping Your Cool at an additional 5% off Amazon.com's everyday low price.

Positive Discipline for Preschoolers: For Their Early Years--Raising Children Who are Responsible, Respectful, and Resourceful (Positive Discipline Library) + Screamfree Parenting: The Revolutionary Approach to Raising Your Kids by Keeping Your Cool
Buy together today: $24.83

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“The book gives many principles for overcoming anxiety and to start a new path of connection with your kids. It includes thought-provoking questions at the end of each chapter.” —Parents

About the Author

HAL EDWARD RUNKEL is a licensed marriage and family therapist, relationship 
coach, and international speaker. He is founder and president of ScreamFree 
Living, Inc.—dedicated to calming the world one relationship at a time. Hal’s principles
have already helped thousands of families revolutionize their relationships. He lives 
with his wife, Jenny, and their two children just outside Atlanta, Georgia.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 240 pages
  • Publisher: Three Rivers Press; Reprint edition (August 19, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0767927435
  • ISBN-13: 978-0767927437
  • Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.7 x 8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (207 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,570 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

This book really changed my way of viewing things. brudemi  |  65 reviewers made a similar statement
I would HIGHLY recommend this book to all parents. A Better Parent  |  53 reviewers made a similar statement
This was a very easy read and had many good suggestions. M. Gorham  |  48 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
224 of 232 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The only person you can control is yourself. August 2, 2005
Format:Paperback
"ScreamFree Parenting," by Hal Runkel, is an excellent parenting guide that will help moms and dads everywhere to keep (or regain) their sanity. Runkel is a licensed family and marriage therapist and one of the founders of ScreamFree Living, Inc. The book's thesis is that parents cannot keep tabs on their kids 24/7, nor can they force their children to consistently behave in a certain way. Therefore, mothers and fathers would be better off learning to focus on how they react to their children's words and actions.

Parents, Runkel contends, should take stock of themselves. Are they in control of their behavior when they interact with their children? Or are they at the mercy of their "emotional reactivity"--their unthinking, knee-jerk reactions? If the latter is true, it is likely that parent-child interactions will be tense, angry, and unproductive.

All of us who have struggled with parental responsibilities instinctively realize that a calm and reasoned approach is far more effective than a hysterical and dictatorial one. However, because of fatigue, ignorance, or inertia, many of us instinctively lash out, saying things that we don't really mean when our kids push our buttons. What to do?

Runkel does not advocate a permissive parenting style. Rather, the author recommends what he calls "judo parenting." Judo is "the art of going with another's momentum." A ScreamFree parent facilitates rather than dictates; he encourages his children to use their own resources to solve problems. By helping kids to get in the habit of making their own decisions and living with the consequences, parents will be more likely to launch "self-directed" adults.

Runkel's writing style is clear, concise, humorous, and to-the-point.
... Read more ›
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155 of 162 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Save your voice box October 10, 2005
Format:Paperback
I've been trying to cut down on yelling and work through problems by staying calm, which is the approach Runkel, a licensed family and marriage therapist, advocates. The book is an easy read and doesn't overwhelm the parent with too many steps as self-help books often do.

The clear, direct, and humorous writing style allows parents with hectic lives to quickly read the book, absorb its concepts, and put them to use. Each chapter ends with reflection questions to reinforce the themes from the chapter. The book continues its effectiveness whether or not the reader answers the questions. However, thinking about the questions might shed light on you, your kids, and your relationships.

The concept of parents not letting their emotions guide their response to a child's troubles is not new, but Runkel shares stories, experiences, and explanations on how to do it. Sure, junior spilling juice all over the carpet can make any parent mad, but dealing with the situation while maintaining control has better results than a scream fest, spanking, or arguing.

Though the book focuses on parenting, its concepts largely address ourselves as individuals. For we have to take care of us first before others. Instead of permissive or dictatorship parenting, Runkel encourages judo parenting, which is "the art of going with another's momentum." He shows how to do this by providing the answers to the questions all parents get like "I'm bored," "Are we there yet?" and "I hate you!"

Two nitpicks. First, there are a few religious references. I wish this had been omitted because religion is a hot issue and the book's concepts fly well without the religious quotes or references.
... Read more ›
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62 of 67 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars the BEST book about parenting I have ever read!!! February 21, 2007
By Cheryl
Format:Paperback
I wish this book was out five years ago when my daughter was born. This book has been such a Godsend to me - a real eye opener. Of the hundreds of books I have read on parenting - this is the only one that actually deals with being a parent and not about molding/training your child. I also bought his class on cd and it has changed the relationship I have with my children. I can't recommend it enough.
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131 of 157 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars Not Impressed November 17, 2008
Format:Paperback
OK, I bought and read ScreamFree Parenting and have to say I was unimpressed. He really does not give you any "action oriented" parenting advice and I could probably boil the book down to a few bullet points:

1. Work on keeping yourself calm in the face of children melting down.
2. Give them latitude to be themselves, learn privacy, and make better choices (read very much like free-spirit parenting of the 60's, including suggestions that you allow your teenage daughter to have boys in her room with the door closed, because you trust her and respect her privacy -- yeah, right).
3. Force children to suffer consequences for their decisions, even if it's difficult for you, as the parent, to follow through with those consequences.

I can't say I would recommend this to anyone -- even getting a library copy would be a stretch, as there are much better parenting books available.
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51 of 59 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
When our youngest child went off to college, the school's president told us that many parents cannot let go. They call before, during and after every class. They help out with homework over the Internet. They want to hear about every stumble and bruise. The parents act like they are students in terms of how often they contact advisors and administrators on their children's behalf.

You can imagine what these kids are going to be like when their parents are ill or die. They'll feel like the world has ended. Is that any way to be a parent? I don't think so.

I like having children who become responsible, effective adults. I have four of them, and I'm happy with how it all turned out.

At the opposite end, you see parents going nuts because their two-year-old drops a spoon on the floor in a restaurant . . . again . . . and again . . . and again. We've all been there. We've all wanted to go nuts. But it's not good for anyone if you do.

ScreamFree Parenting gives you solid, realistic advice for how to handle those years from 2-18 so that your children end up the way you would like them to be . . . as themselves in a responsible life. . . and not as robots ordered around by you.

Hal Runkel does a good job of explaining how setting limits, letting children make mistakes and learn, and being calm make for a wonderful difference. I was reminded of the importance of calm last week when our local high school put on a one act play written by the students that described a 9 year-old girl being driven crazy by her parents' fights. Calm is good for children. They will eventually learn calmness from you . . . if you are a good role model.

So start to help your kids . . . by working on you!
... Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Opened up my eyes!!!
It's been so much easier in our household since reading this book. I'm a much calmer person and its benefited all of us.
Published 9 days ago by Evelyn
5.0 out of 5 stars Must read parenting book
I love that this book focuses on changing the parents behavior and reactions instead of changing your kids. Read more
Published 13 days ago by Twingle Mommy
5.0 out of 5 stars A whole different way to parent.
This book isn't a book on parenting, it's a book to help YOU become a better parent, logically, the better-behaved child would follow. It is all about leading-by-example.
Published 2 months ago by Michalah
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing
I am pleasantly surprised that this book teaches me to focus on "me", instead of focusing on the behavior of my children!! I love it!
Published 2 months ago by Tina Masaros
4.0 out of 5 stars Emotion Free!!!
I think most parenting books are just...parenting reminders...and this one touches base with you just like that. But it also goes deeper, takes a bit of a different approach. Read more
Published 2 months ago by J.B. Witchdance
3.0 out of 5 stars Good concept
I think it is a good concept but not necessarily usable on children of all ages or all tempermants. I like the idea, just not sure it is really usable over a large demographic
Published 2 months ago by Robyn Emery
5.0 out of 5 stars absolutely FANTASTIC book!!!!
PACKED with insight and wisdom and practical tips. This book is revolutionary in the cosmos of parenting literature. Read more
Published 2 months ago by kirbygirl
5.0 out of 5 stars It is hard to admit "I'm not a good parent"
I read the book and all ONE-star reviews and my conclusion is "most of us are not good parents; we don't want to admit it and we don't like when someone else points it out to... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Irina Cohen
5.0 out of 5 stars A Very In Depth Look In Parenting
This book certainly goes in depth in the ideas of parenting. Rather than just being a factual book like Kid-Friendly Ways To Change Behavior - Fun conflict Management Tactics For... Read more
Published 3 months ago by The Prof.
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
This came super fast and exactly like the description, would definitely do business with them again. I am very pleased with this purchase.
Published 4 months ago by Lisa
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Topic From this Discussion
ScreemFree Parenting - complete fiction?
Authors use this disclaimer to protect themselves from being sued by real people who may recognize themselves in the book and who do not wish to be in it - not to say everything in the book is fiction or didn't happen! They change the names but the the stories are factual so no permission is... Read more
Aug 3, 2010 by L. Murphy |  See all 3 posts
Isn't this the best parenting book or am I crazy?
I agree, this is an amazing book. It is so true. Everytime I see myself or other parents get upset, I think, they need to calm down. They need to put down the gauntlet. I have read the whole book and listened to it.
Aug 10, 2009 by Mom of 3 Boys |  See all 7 posts
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