By Hal Runkel, LMFT, Founder and President, ScreamFree Living, Inc.

As parents, we have within our reach the greatest and most effective disciplinary strategy in the world. No, it’s not military school or “Brat Camp”. The single greatest teaching and discipline strategy is a phenomenon woven into the fabric of life itself.

Simply put, here it is: our choices have consequences. Every single one of them.

There is a law of sowing and reaping that, when we think about it, has taught us more than any lecture, textbook, or sermon. Whenever we are able to calmly reflect on our experience, including our mistakes, then we begin to own our choices and become healthier, more self-directed people.

But when it comes to our parenting, we don’t like to watch our children make mistakes. And we don’t like having to take the time and energy to enforce the consequences of those mistakes. So instead, we scream. We threaten. We hope it “works,” meaning we hope our screaming forces them to behave the way we need them to. When it doesn’t, we scream some more—and then our screaming becomes the consequence itself. This isn’t working and everyone knows it. No one is learning anything here, but what else can we do?

We can let the consequences do the screaming. We can learn to get our emotional anxiety out of the way and let the consequences do their job. So how do we do that? We learn to calm ourselves down. But before we do that, we must actively become interested in calming ourselves down, instead of focusing on getting our children to never make mistakes.

Here are some principles to follow when deciding to “let the consequences do the screaming”:

In this section of our newsletter, we have Hal answer a direct question asked by one of our ScreamFree Parents. Today's question comes from a mom who's regaining custody of her kids (and struggling to make it work).

I have three girls ages 7,5, & 3. Right now they are living with Grandma and they have been there for a year. How do I make the transition of moving back in with me easier on them?

Wow, sounds like you've all been through quite a year. I'm guessing that the years before this last one were pretty rough as well--that's why they went to live with Grandma in the first place. Regardless of the situation, I'm sure you and your kids are all thrilled to get back together.

Or maybe not. Maybe the situation is leaving all parties a little confused, or torn. Your kids have known a lot of chaos in their short lives, and now they're facing yet another transition. But they're getting to move back in with Mommy, so it's a transitiong they want, so it's all a little confusing. I'm sure Grandma is torn; she obviously loves your kids a great deal and wants what's best for them, but she may doubt whether that's living with you or her. She may be look toward having her home back to herself, but she will deeply miss the daily life with your kids.

And even you are facing a tremendously confusing transition. You're probably getting your life back together, and after a year of hard separation from your kids, you can't wait to get your babies back. And yet, you're not sure whether you can be the type of mother you've always wanted to be. And you're not sure whether they want to be back with with, whether they'll respect you at all after a year, and whether you'll be able to handle it when they begin to criticize, disrespect, and even wish they could go back and live with your mother.

Ouch.

What you can take confidence in is the fact that you're doing to right thing. You're courageously accepting your responsibility to your kids, getting yourself ready to create a new life with them. Congratulations. Yours is not an easy journey, but it is the right one.

And the greatest thing you need is that confidence. Confidence in yourself and your choices. That's your greatest asset, because when you believe in yourself and your choices, you can live with negative responses to those choices. And kids being kids will definitely give you negative responses. Kids facing these transitions will do it even more so. You can go a long way to normalizing their experience by giving them the freedom to have such negative responses.

Being confident in yourself can help you give them the freedom to disagree with you, the freedom to feel torn between you and your mother, the freedom to express their confusion and frustration. This is what you want from them, because the more your kids are able to express their frustrations, the less they'll have to act them out in destructive ways.

And seeing that will, in turn, give you even more confidence.

And remember to take care,

Hal

Do you have a Parenting question for Hal, the author and creator of ScreamFree Parenting? Contact Us Directly. We will answer a limited number of questions in upcoming newsletters.

Please note that we also cannot respond to all questions and can not always evaluate your specific challenge. If you want further feedback on your individual situation, we encourage you to explore Relationship Coaching with Hal or any of our team members. You can get a free 20 minute evaluation of your situation to determine if coaching is right for you by contacting us here.

You can also share your questions or parenting issues in the ScreamFree Parenting Forum. Here you can interact with other parents on the ScreamFree Journey and share your questions and successes. Visit the ScreamFree Parenting Forum today and discuss parenting issues with parents all over the country.