Hal Runkel: Become a Scream-Free Parent

CBN.com Hal Edward Runkel says that all parents experience a universal struggle: they all feel incredibly anxious about their kids and their choices, and parents don’t know what to do about it. 

Parents everywhere face the toughest challenge of their lives: trying to create a loving family environment filled with mutual respect and cooperation. However, parents are trying to do this in a culture that celebrates irresponsibility and self-indulgence. 

“Not all of us scream at our kids,” says Hal. “But all parents do experience anxiety.” ScreamFree Parenting is about calming all reactive responses to this anxiety. 

“It’s called ScreamFree because screaming is the most popular reaction,” says Hal. “But it’s not all tough stuff either. Becoming a ScreamFree parent also invites you to treat yourself better than you’ve ever thought you should. It all begins with one fundamental shift: parenting is not about children. It’s about parents.”            

“The greatest thing parents can do is to learn to focus on yourself,” says Hal. Most of us have been operating with a faulty model of how to live in our relationships. “By focusing on yourself, you will have a healthier, happier relationship with your whole family,” says Hal. 

Once, when Hal’s kids, Hannah and Brandon, were four and two, they went to Waffle House for breakfast. Brandon was not in the mood to cooperate during this family outing and soon began having a temper tantrum. Hal says he was close to his own emotional edge.

After Brandon threw his waffle and  plate on the floor, Hal snatched Brandon out of the booster seat. All eyes were fixed on them as Brandon kicked and screamed out of the restaurant. Hal proceeded to yell at Brandon, pointing his finger and using big words, intimidating his young son who only stood 36 inches tall. 

“Emotional reactivity is our worst enemy when it comes to having great relationships,” says Hal. “Our biggest struggle as parents is with our own emotional reactivity.”  Instead of trying to control our kids, Hal says it is more important to concentrate on calming your own emotional, knee-jerk reactions.

“Children need their parents to be the first ones who see them as individuals in their own right, with their own lives, decisions and future,” says Hal. “They need for us to create enough space to do just that.”

Kids need room because without adequate space to explore and make their own decisions, they can never fully become the self-directed adults they need to be.

Hal says parents have the most powerful teaching method ever devised or discovered at their fingertips. The single greatest teaching and discipline strategy is a phenomenon embedded within the fabric of life itself. Simply put, Hal says, our choices have consequences. 

“We want our children to be aware of all the influences on their choices,” says Hal. “We want them to take personal responsibility for their choices and accept with dignity the repercussions.  You make a choice, you accept the consequences of that choice – good or bad. That’s the type of maturity we want for our children. That’s self-direction.” 

The good news, Hal says, is that all you have to do is welcome those consequences into your home. The bad news: if you start to welcome those consequences into your home, first you have to learn to accept those consequences for yourself. 

“The hard thing is,” says Hal, “is that you have to learn to watch your children suffer through their own consequences.”

Hal says when parents start the ScreamFree revolution in their home, their children will pull out all the stops to lure you back into your old habits. A client told Hal recently that after an extended period of practicing ScreamFree Parenting, her 13-year-old finally had enough. 

“I hate it when you’re calm!,” she screamed. “What we’re talking about here is bringing to an end the destructive patterns that drive some families for generations,” says Hal. “We’re talking about creating new patterns of influence and intimacy that can transcend the reactionary dialogues and messages that fill our brainwaves.”

ScreamFree is learning to focus on ourselves, calm ourselves down, and grow ourselves up.