I really like the idea of being “ScreamFree”, but I don’t want to become one of those parents whose kids walk all over them. Why do you say the greatest thing a parent can do for their child is to focus on themselves, rather than the child? What about when the child is totally out of control? Are we supposed to just sit back and let them go crazy?

Great questions. As long as I am focused on my children, orbiting my whole life around them, then I am putting all of my emotional responses into their hands. I essentially give them my remote control and I become dependent upon them, the least mature persons in the family, to actually lead me. This is simply backwards thinking.

Children are not given to us to become our whole world. Their purpose is to become self-directed, contributing adults. Our calling is to create an environment that helps them do that.

This means focusing more on what we’re doing and less on them. How am I going to behave, regardless of their behavior? I have to focus on me because I am the only one I can ultimately control.

Now, when your kids start to unravel, lose control of themselves, essentially going crazy, that’s when your calm becomes even more important. At these times, parents should make sure they themselves are in the most control possible. Too often, we focus so much on the child that we lose control of ourselves, which only makes things even worse. This can occur with the toddler’s tantrum in the restaurant or the teen’s struggles with promiscuity. Our harsh or fearful reactions will only make things worse.

I am in no way advocating the kind of lazy parenting that many of us see too often. On the contrary, ScreamFree Parenting allows us to have more influence on our children than we ever thought possible. Once we’ve brought ourselves under control, it becomes much easier to respond to our child with wisdom and principled decisions, instead of anger and regrettable words. We can set and enforce consequences. We can better understand what’s emotionally behind our child’s behavior. Most importantly, we can become the leaders that our children are truly craving.

Stay Cool,

Hal