Here I go again, reading another self-help book. This time the book is Scream Free Parenting: The Revolutionary Approach to Raising Your Kids by Keeping Your Cool. The book had me at keeping your cool. With a teen and pre-teens in the house, I often and praying to keep my cool. One of my goals for this year is to catch up on some much needed reading.  That much needed reading includes books that are on a plan to improve my parenting and communication skills. I bought this book a few years ago and started it but never finished it. Not because it wasn’t good, just because life got busy.

Before I go into the details of the book and how you should not ask your kids to clean their rooms, let me first start by  explaining why I even need the book.

Even during my third pregnancy I read as many books about pregnancy, breastfeeding, potty training, and babies as possible.  I had a library full of information both on my shelves and in my head.   I enjoyed learning as much as I could and totally thought the more information, the better.  My newly pregnant friends and family relied on me often for advice on anything from tender nipples to preventing diaper rashes and I felt pretty proud of myself for knowing so much.  It helped me too as a new parent.  When my kids were feeling sick, or entering a new phase, I was confident and secure in what was happening and my ability to work through it.  I like to think that this confidence made parenting one, two, then three kids a little bit easier.

But at some point the reading stopped and next thing you know my babies were all kids. So I bought the book. I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing anymore and the thought frightened me.  My youngest child was getting ready to enter kindergarten and  my oldest was turning ten.

Scream Free Parenting Book Review

When I first started reading the book, I found  the information practical and logical. While it would take many posts to catch you up, I can do my best to summarize the basic concepts of this book.  The book focuses on understanding your role as a parent and checking your emotions so that you can be the calming authority in your family.  Learning how to check your own emotions when your children test your patience or make you down right angry will help you to stop yelling because ultimately you realize that a yelling/screaming parent is a parent out of control.  Checking your emotions will help you realize your ultimate goal as a parent and that goal is the end result raising well adjusted and self-directed kids that turn out to be responsible adults.  Instead of yelling back at your 13 year old daughter that screamed at you, told you how much she hated your guts, and slammed doors in your face, retreat and turn away calmly because yelling back creates an uglier scenario that ultimately will drive your child further and further away from you.

Hmm, sounds interesting you say?  I agree.  But there’s a point that I think we can focus on here.  If each parent realizes that we can’t control our children to act or behave a certain way,  then the anxiety that we have when our children our “out of control” will  go away.  Without anxiety/frustration/anger we will not have a reason to scream at our kids.  No matter how upset they make you.  Our goal is to focus on growing up as parents and individuals.  Growing up means realizing that we can’t give into our own anxieties.  We have a choice to make and that’s remaining calm when we are stressed.  We also have to respect our kids even if they do not respect us. Respect for them means includes their beings, personalities, and their spaces even at young ages.

Spaces.  The third point that I thought was interesting.  Understanding physical and mental spaces.  I never thought of my child has having a space. personality, yes. But their own mental and physical spaces didn’t really occur to me.    For example, Runkel says that all persons, including kids,  are entitled to their own physical space or kingdom to call their own and do as they please with.  For kids, this space means his or her bedroom.  Parents need to respect their child’s kingdom by knocking and asking  to enter the room, then waiting for a response.  Respecting a no answer.  Respect also means you don’t snoop through your child’s stuff. And lastly, respect means accepting that your child does not have to keep their room cleans because quite simply, the desire to have a clean room should come from within.

Wait, keep reading.

The room is not yours, it’s your child’s right? If your eight year old doesn’t feel like cleaning his room and it makes you angry, go and clean your own room, says Runkel. Although we may want our kids to keep their rooms clean, there’s nothing we can do about it because we can’t force the desire to have a clean room upon a person.  Do we want to raise robots or rebels? A robot is someone who’s been trained to clean to keep mom happy.  A rebel realizes that keeping his room dirty control’s mom’s reactions and ultimately her emotions.  Instead, let the room become a disaster and your child will one day realize that a dirty room where nothing can be found, or that stinks, is not a fun place to call your kingdom.

I’m not done with the book yet but I don’t know how to digest this part of the book.  Not tell my kid to clean his/her room? Seems blasphemous to me.  How many years will I have to wait before my six year old realizes that she can’t find her 15th Barbie and therefore, she should clean it?  I do a deep cleaning every couple of weeks where I go under beds, in the corners of closest, into nook and crannies and I’m telling  you, I feel like I need a shot of whiskey for every empty juice box, bag of chips, or sticky cup that I find when I’m cleaning.  Runkel says to do this twice a year and have your child help.

Twice a year? As in, every six months? I don’t think I can do this! But I’m willing to try this book again. My kids are older, I am viewing parenting differently, and I believe that trying something different will likely result in different outcomes.

What do you all think? Should we force our kids to clean their rooms, or respect their kingdoms and do/say nothing?