Thursday, September 20, 2012

Get A Grip


"Grasp the subject, the words will follow."
-Cato the Elder (234 B.C.-149 B.C)

ScreamFree's Take
hal totd
Many times, when parents first encounter the ScreamFree material, they beg me, “Just tell me the right thing to do and then I can do it.” Believe me, I totally understand that desire. But I would be doing those parents and their children a grave disservice if I gave them what they thought they wanted. Why is that?
For one reason, both kids and parents are unique. There is no one size fits all solution out there for any issue. And even if there were, the “right” technique employed for the wrong reason can be just as harmful as anything else. What I encourage parents to do is relax just a bit and take some time to really understand the principles of ScreamFree Parenting. It’s a totally different way to view the world and all of the relationships in it that matter most. By jumping to “what do I say” to my kids before marinating in “how can I be” with my kids, parents are selling themselves and this material short. Parents could simply focus on grasping these principles and they won’t have to try so hard to say and do all the right things. Patterns will start to unfold before them that they never saw and their kids will look less like problems to solve and more like people to love. And once this happens, just about any words will do.
-Hal Runkel, LMFT, Author of ScreamFree Parenting ScreamFree Marriage

1 comment:

Hannah Baer said...

Great post, the sentence which had the most impact for me was "kids will look less like problems to solve and more like people to love" WOW! After a rough day with the kids my husband and I sat down and had a great talk. We discussed all the challenges, questions, and worries of parenting and in the end we decided we needed to be sure we handled each other and our kids with love no matter the situation. Kids (let's face it, all of us) have plenty of people telling us what we're doing wrong, and what we're not good at, the one place we should be able to go and feel loved is home.