“Are we disciplined enough to build in a proper pause to our life? Or are we so consumed with running around that it’s only acts of God or large outside forces that propel us to stop, take stock of how lucky we are?”
(Paul Thomas Anderson, director)

For all parents—tomorrow is a big day for you. I believe it with all my heart. Starting tomorrow, you will no longer have to wait for answers to your most vexing parenting questions. You will no longer have to wait to see a counselor for help with your most pressing parenting problems, let alone cough up enormous amounts of precious time and money to do so. You will no longer have to wait on anyone to create the family life you want most.

Why? Because it’s finally here. What’s it? Well, for that, you will have to wait…until tomorrow. Just pause for 24 hours. You’ll be amazed by what it can do for you.

Peace begins with pause,

“Resolutions are a wonderful thing if we can keep them, but many resolutions go by the wayside because we have not done anything different with our mindset.”
(Monica Johnson)

Over the last couple of days, we’ve posted a couple of answers to some vexing parenting questions. One was written, the other video. I sincerely hope they were helpful. There will be dozens more coming next week…and eventually hundreds…on the new Pause Platform.

I love answering these questions. But what I love even more is not answering parents’ questions. What I truly love most is helping parents learn to answer their own questions. That’s where the real benefit lies…learning to pursue our own solutions in ways that reflect our strongest desires and principles.

And that takes changing our mindset.

In many ways, that is the whole mission of ScreamFree—changing how we think about our relationships from the inside out.

For Parenting, this means:

• moving from controlling our kids’ behavior to controlling our own emotions instead
• dropping our responsibility for our kids, and ramping up our responsibilities to them
• no longer raising kids who need protection, but learning to raise amazing adults through preparation

As you learn more about the new Pause Platform in the days ahead, please know this: Everything we’ve created is designed to help you find real answers, and actionable solutions, to all of your parenting problems. And sooner than you think, as you adopt more and more of the ScreamFree mindset, you’ll be coming up with your own (and offering them to others!)

Peace begins with pause,

“Do the principles of ScreamFree apply to kids of all ages?”
(- A curious parent)

Parents write in to us constantly asking all kinds of questions. We try to answer as many as we can. Yesterday, I talked about webinars and used the Daily Pause to give a written response. Today, I thought it would be best  to give my response “in person.” Plan on seeing more videos like this in the future, but for now, click here to watch my response.

Peace begins with pause,

“I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.”
(Harry Truman)

Recently we’ve hosted a couple of Ask Hal webinars, where you got the chance to send in your personal questions directly. Here’s one I didn’t get to answer during that time:

“Hal, how do you motivate your child or teach them self-motivation to be more productive? How do you teach responsibility—for school, chores, sports, internet and life—without nagging so much my teenaged 14-year-old boy just rebels?”
—A. Braden

How many of us parents of teenagers have struggled with this one? (All of us). How many of us realize, however, that just by asking the question this way we’re already off on the wrong foot? Well, obviously, this mom did because midway through she changed from “how do I motivate?” to “how do I teach them self-motivation?”, and therein lies the whole difference.

See, one thing I’ve learned is the second we think it’s our job to motivate another person, especially our kid, we’re making life HARDER for them and ourselves. Even if we did find the perfectly attractive carrot, or the perfectly prodding stick, we’re still treating them like a donkey…and ending up shocked when they soon start acting like an ass.

Instead of trying to change his mind about school, chores, screen time, etc., begin changing your own MINDSET instead. Start with these truths:

—It is NOT your job to motivate your child—it’s his job to motivate himself. (And he already does for some things—get curious about what already motivates him: Why does he do anything at all?)

—It is NOT your job to work harder at choosing his life than he does—his problems are actually his problems.

—It IS your job to clearly outline what choices your child DOES have (which chores he does and when, whether he does his homework, the screen times and sites he has access to, the electives he takes, perhaps)

—It IS your job to clearly outline what choices your child does NOT have (whether he does chores at all, whether you check his grades every three weeks, when his phone and the Internet are NOT available, what consequences from you he receives for his choices)

Everything changes when you stop feeling responsible for your son, and start doing your responsibilities to him.

Peace begins with pause,

“Self-image sets the boundaries of individual accomplishment.”
(Maxwell Maltz)

Do you believe you’re a good parent? Do you see yourself as a good spouse? How about as a leader, or colleague?

It is so easy to cite all the external factors limiting our success, but how we view ourselves internally is far more powerful than we imagine.

This is why it’s so important to pay attention to our language when talk about ourselves. Or to ourselves.

You are more valuable than you feel. You are more capable than you think.

Peace begins with pause,

“Can we start it all over again, this morning?”
(Beck)

Every time I smell laundry detergent, I remember a little sign that hung in my childhood home’s laundry room. It read, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” As a young kid, I was almost hypnotized by it—I couldn’t exactly explain its meaning, but I loved the phrasing of it. “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” It didn’t rhyme but it was certainly rhythmic, so it felt like poetry.

The idea, of course, is this: The past has passed; yesterday no longer exists. Today, however, is a new beginning, as all “todays” are. It’s as full of newness for me at 45 as it is for my father at 82.

But do we really believe that? Is today actually as full of newness for each of us, regardless of age?

On the one hand, No, of course not. The newness of possibility that my aging, retired father wakes up to this morning is very different than mine. He has much more earthly life behind him than he does in front of him, and his body and mind are not what they once were.

On the other hand, though, Yes. Each of us this morning faces the same 24 hours as everybody else. My father does at 82, and I do at 45. Today is the first day of the rest of our respective lives.

The difference, as usual, depends on our mindset. We discount the universal possibilities of today whenever we think we have to make up for yesterday, or a lifetime of yesterdays. As if we could.

Faced with that impossible task, any one of us could justify crawling back under the covers and calling it a day. Summoning up the courage to stand up and show up, though, regardless of how we’ve spent the number of days in our history, enables us to call today something else:

The first day of the rest of our lives.

Peace begins with pause,

There’s some new research out there confirming what we’ve strongly suspected for awhile: Strict, authoritarian parenting, using psychological intimidation to demand obedience, greatly increases the chances a child will end up bullying other kids, or being bullied themselves.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise–kids who’ve been bullied by their parents will either mimic that behavior on others, or allow others to bully them as well. It’s what they know.

What does come as a surprise is the new research showing that extremely permissive parenting can have the same effect as well–increasing the numbers of both bullies and the bullied.

Turns out being too hands on, directing your kids’ every move, and being too hands off, denying your kids the loving guidance they need, can have equally destructive effects.

So, what style of parenting reduces bullying on all fronts? Balanced, loving respect for kids’ autonomy and their need for age-based instruction.

At ScreamFree, we call that giving your kids both space and place: The space they need to be their own person, and the knowledge of their place in the family, where their own individual space ends.

Peace begins with pause,

Sometimes…life is just hard.
…people make mistakes.
…you have to love them through it.

Sometimes…life is just painful.
…we make our own mistakes.
…we have to love ourselves through it.

Peace begins with pause,

“The greatest remedy for anger is delay. “
(Seneca)

Here’s a challenge for today: The next time you feel angry, about anything at all, press pause and just wait.

Feeling your blood beginning to boil about your boss, about your spouse, about the US election? Take a step away from the person (or the screen), breathe deeply, and wait just a minute. Test yourself to see if you can do it.

By simply creating the space between stimulus and response, you can find the creativity that lies within you. In this space, you can:

• remember what’s most important to you
• decide whether or not to take something personally
• think of meaningful questions to ask yourself (Am I more angry about this than before? Why this time? What am I afraid this means? What do I want instead of what I’m getting?)
• respond from your principles and integrity rather than reacting out of your anger

Do whatever it takes to stay calm in the heat of that moment and remember, the most important button on your emotional remote control is the one marked pause.

Peace begins with pause,

“The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence;
the grass is greenest where you water it.”
(Robert Fulghum)

None of us sets out to fall into the trap of envying our neighbors. No one begins their morning saying, “Today, I will look at other families and lament the fact that mine isn’t more like theirs.” No one does that on purpose. And yet, many of us spend our days doing just that. (especially on social media)

Life is hard. Marriage is hard. These are fundamental and universal realities. And the more time you spend gazing at the green grass in someone else’s yard, the less time and energy you have for your own.

Try to find the good in your spouse and in your kids. Then do what you can to focus on yourself. Make yourself the very best husband, father, wife, or mother you can be today. By appreciating the good in your own family and nurturing the good in you, your grass will certainly grow greener.

Peace begins with pause,