Name: Screamfree Parenting
ISBN: 9780767927420

Hal Edward Runkel

Introduces a practical approach to parenting that explains how to overcome the stresses and anxieties of parenting by learning how to relate to children in a calm, cool, and connected way.

The Revolutionary Approach to Raising Your Kids Without Losing Your Cool

Screamfree Parenting

A family therapist introduces a practical, effective approach to parenting that explains how to overcome the stresses and anxieties of parenting by learning how to relate to children in a calm, cool, and connected way, emphasizing the need for privacy for every member of the family, how to respect a child's choices and opinions, and how to set new patterns of cooperation and connection. Reprint. 60,000 first printing.

The Revolutionary Approach to Raising Your Kids by Keeping Your Cool

ScreamFree Parenting

Jenni Pertuset

This book has been published by two houses (Waterbrook and Broadway), and though the versions are remarkably different, they look identical. I didn't know that I had the Christian version (Waterbrook) when I picked it up. Though friends tell me there is a little of the explicit Christian perspective in the Broadway book, it doesn't contain frequent assertions that, for example, "This is the way God parents us."

Aside from the Christian perspective not resonating me, this had a few good points, such as the suggestion that we should drop the phrase "picking our battles" because such language sets us up as adversaries to our children. There are other thoughtful points in the book about why parenting should be more peaceful than it often is in practice (especially, in my experience, in authoritarian Christian homes, which seem to be his target audience for this edition).

The problem is in his recommendations for alternatives, which comes down to this: when your kids don't do what you want them to, impose consequences. Not only does he contradict his own points about not manipulating our children, but he uses "consequences" as a euphemism for punishment. And consequences don't work for the goals I have for my family and the relationship I want with my child.

Screamfree Parenting The Revolutionary Approach to Raising Your Kids Without Losing Your Cool

Reviews

Highlights