My child sreams so loudly, I am afraid of diciplining him..

I have A four year old son who comes to visit me everyother weekend during the school year, and every other week during summer vacation. His Father is not consistant with dicipline, or rules. His father uses spanking as A punishment. I do not believe in that, though everyone is intiltled to their own parenting style, it is not for me. I try to stay consistant with the rules and punishment (ie: time out's). Although I know it is important to set limit's, and follow through with punishment, I sometimes find myself giving in out of fear. I live in A two bedroom apartment, and am very aware of my neighbors. I am afriad that when they hear my son screaming they may think something is wrong. I don't want the neighbor's to look at me, and think " There's that mean mom, jeeze, I feel so bad for her kid's." When really, I do the very best I can. I don't yell, and stay I stay calm. Do I let him cry it out even if it is disturbing the neighhbor's? What can I do??

[Leiqhlay]

Did you just say you are afraid of a 4yr old ? Does that mean you afraid of a 1yr old because they cry and scream ?
I know not every parent spanks the children but i was spanked as a child and when i have children i believe i will spank mines.
Nobody looks at my mom as a mean parent ; they know that her children are disciplined and they dare not step out of line because they know whats coming.
if you let your child scream ; you can get the police knocking at your door from neighbors thinking your not taking care of your children
it already seems you have a visitation system set up like my brother does

Following through on punishment is you & the child's other gaurdian giving him the same discipline

if he breaks a rule somewhere else and gets spanked
comes to you and doesn't that 4 year old knows they can get away
with it
but if they know you will spank him and somebody else will
his behavior will change
and i know after being spanked a while
you stop doing what gets you spanked

[Sandman2]

    I think you are doing the right thing (and the books I recommend to parents also agree).  Kids scream usually because they have learned it gets results.  Letting them scream should sooner or later produce the result you want.  Giving in to the screaming just teaches them to keep screaming cause it proves to them that screaming works for them.
The neighbors have probably figured out by now what is going on, but it doesn't hurt to communicate with them.

Just for the record, I kind of disagree with a few of Leiqhlay's points on being spanked, but as you so nicely put it, "everyone is intiltled to their own parenting style".  

[mammo]

I think you and your husband need to get together and agree on how you both will discipline your son.  Consistency is extremely important, and discipline comes before neighbors.  Once he learns that this will not be tolerated, he will stop screaming.  Everyone knows how kids can behave at this age, and even if they called the police, they would see that he is well cared for and they have probably endured the same with their own children.  Tell him if he wants to scream to go to his room and do it.  Then just ignore it.  He will quickly learn that it's not accomplishing anything and will stop.  He's pushing the boundaries, and you need to enforce them.  Good luck and take care.