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About This Book

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.

Screamfree Parenting: The Revolutionary Approach to Raising Your Kids by Keeping Your Cool
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Customer Reviews
The only person you can control is yourself.   Review Date: August 2, 2005 Reviewer: E. Bukowsky, NY United States "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. The book is conveniently divided into easy-to-read sections and the chapters all conclude with thought-provoking "reflection questions." The author provides many practical examples to demonstrate how his principles work in the real world. Runkel's amusing quotations from a wide variety of sources add liveliness to his message. In additon, there are lengthier anecdotes that are taken from Runkel's experiences as a family therapist. Most parents will pick up many useful tips from "ScreamFree Parenting." It is an entertaining, intelligent, and practical approach to raising our kids without losing our minds. the BEST book about parenting I have ever read!!!   Review Date: February 21, 2007 Reviewer: Cheryl, USA 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. Great Advice for Those Who Want to Raise Responsible Children   Review Date: March 6, 2006 Reviewer: Professor Donald Mitchell, Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 97,000 Helpful Votes Globally 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! I wish I had read this book when I was a new father. It would have saved lots of anxiety for everyone. Nice going, Mr. Runkel Scream Free Parenting   Review Date: January 31, 2006 Reviewer: C. Wages, Atlanta, GA Fabulous book. I am going to a seminar to hear the author speak. I am almost finished with the book and it has helped a lot. I am a teacher and it is great for my classroom as well! Definitely a must read for parents - the sooner the better. They have a great website as well. ScreamFree Parenting has fundamentally changed my parenting!   Review Date: March 25, 2005 Reviewer: Frederick Miller, Atlanta, GA I got this parenting book thinking it would provide me with a bagful of techniques for parenting my newly adopted baby girl. As a person with inadequate examples of parenting, I knew I needed a different approach, especially since our daughter was adopted. You see, not all parenting books take into account the unique dynamics of adoptive relationships. What I found in ScreamFree Parenting: Raising Your Kids by Keeping Your Cool was a fundamental shift in how to view parenting altogether, adoptive or biological. Hal Runkel's central them, "Parenting is not about kids, it's about parents", means it not only applies perfectly to familes with adopted children, but to anyone and in any relationship, period. This book absolutely has changed my life. It has not only improved my relationship with my daughter, but with ALL my relationships, including my marriage. I highly recommend this book for improving your parenting and when you finish it, start reading it again. You will thank Hal for helping you to improve all your relationships! Child of ScreamFree Parent   Review Date: April 6, 2005 Reviewer: David W. Markert Jr., Duluth, GA I am an 18 year old who has two younger sisters. I know that my father has read the book and I can tell when my father tries to use the ScreamFree principles on me and although I find it entertaining, at times I can see it working. I also see it working with my little sisters allot. I recommend this book to anyone who find their kids difficult to handle or deal with especially teenagers. I wish that my father had known about this book earlier in my teen years. It would have resolved many fights and disagreements about a number of things.