Building Trust: Process Improvement Style

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Whether you’re an educator or parent of adolescents (or both), you know that teaching kids this age is much different than teaching younger kids. As kids mature, they want more say in how things are decided, what the rules are, and how to determine where the boundaries lie. If we shut them out of the process, we risk them shutting us out of their decision-making, too.

Helping kids this age develop the skills to be productive, happy, fully functioning adults is part of our job, and including them in the conversations about rules and systems is messy but vital. So when you notice that something isn’t working (curfew or classroom norms or family routines), it can be helpful to embark on some process improvement work.

Process Improvement

Each of these steps requires that all parties engage in a certain way in order to come to a better outcome. Everyone is an equal partner in this process, so building consensus is vital.

Understand/Assess requires everyone to lead with curiosity and a willingness to listen. It’s important to define what isn’t currently working and remind folks that just because something isn’t working doesn’t mean they’re to blame – it’s the process or system under scrutiny right now – not the individuals.

Recommend requires permission. Is everyone in agreement or ready to move forward with new ideas? Are there some folks who need to talk or listen more?

Test/Revise requires curiosity and a willingness to collaborate. This doesn’t have to be the final iteration – just an honest attempt to make things better. If everyone agrees to disagree with ideas instead of people, this will go more smoothly.

Agree/Plan requires honesty and dialogue. Where are the areas of alignment (what worked ok for everyone)? Where are the areas of divergence? Everyone involved should feel as though their ideas are equally important and their voices equally valid. Capitalize on the agreements to build a plan.

Communicate/Implement requires effort and careful listening. Does everyone understand the ground rules? Does everyone know what to expect as the new system is put in place? Does everyone have a role to play in setting things in motion?

Listen/Examine requires curiosity and honesty. If something isn’t working or anyone is feeling resentful or unheard, it’s important to know that. Are there unintended consequences of the new system?

If kids know that we’re willing to look closely at our rules and norms and engage them in a process of making things work better for everyone, they’re more likely to open up and feel empowered. Adolescents need to be reminded of their importance and the impact they can have in the systems that serve them as well as their responsibilities. Giving them opportunities to practice being part of the solution can often help diminish the amount of complaining and defiance they engage in and it helps them develop the skills they’ll need to work with others as they move farther and farther out in to the world. Adolescents are also often much more creative in their thinking than adults who have been entrenched in systems for years and it’s beneficial to us as parents and educators to be exposed to their ideas.

I’d love to hear how folks implement these ideas to change the way they do things with teenagers and get some feedback on how it worked.

Is it Really Procrastination?

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We have all been accused of it at least once, and some people seem to be more prone to it than others. There is at least one TED talk about it, and dozens of books have been written on the subject. And then, today, an article in the New York Times about why we procrastinate and how to stop doing it.

But what if it’s not always task avoidance?

What if, sometimes, what other people see as procrastination is actually our natural process?

Have you ever had a deadline staring you down that freaked you out? Have you ever forced yourself to get to work on something only to produce something mediocre and not up to par and have to scrap it and start over? Have you ever worked on something over and over again and gotten incredibly frustrated because you knew it wasn’t your best work, but you HAVE A DEADLINE SO YOU HAVE TO KEEP AT IT?

On the flip side, have you ever waited until you were inspired or feeling in a flow state and created something with much less effort that was far superior to anything you’ve created before?

Deadlines are external things. Necessary, to be certain (at least in most cases), but they often have no relationship to our own internal learning or creative processes. There is no universal timeline that says how long it “should” take each person to craft a comprehensive report or write a novel or make a piece of art. External deadlines have an effect on our emotions, which, in turn, affect our cognitive functions. Simply put, the more worried we are about meeting that deadline, the less we are able to access the portion of our brains that solve puzzles, that work out complex ideas and synthesize ideas.

Additionally, while our culture reveres “work” and willpower, they can be misunderstood. Our minds are working all the time whether other people can see it or not. So going for a walk or organizing that spice drawer alphabetically can actually be in service to the ultimate project we are working on, if only because it allows our subconscious to be kicking away beneath the surface, making connections and playing with ideas. It may look like procrastination to other people, but often when we can give ourselves the space to do other things, we produce more amazing outcomes than if we had tapped in to willpower to work hours and hours every day and exhausted ourselves creating things we ended up having to revise.

For me, the important thing is to remember that I don’t have to justify my seeming inaction to anyone else. I’ve experienced enough cycles of work and subconscious processing in my life to trust it. I like to think about it as a growth cycle. I planted a seed and gave it what it needed – even though it looks like nothing is happening up above, at some point, all the work that happened down below culminates in a shoot poking up from the ground. It seems miraculous because the actual effort wasn’t witnessed, but it was really just the way I work best. The more pressure I put on myself to “look” like I’m working, the more frustrated I get with less than optimal results. Forcing the process only makes me unhappy and tired.

To be sure, we are all guilty of task avoidance from time to time. But maybe the next time you’re being hard on a student or your child or yourself because you assume they’re procrastinating, you can ask whether your conscious self is actually just not quite ready to produce work. It doesn’t mean there isn’t work happening below the surface, and when inspiration strikes, you might be surprised at the pace and easy flow that happens.

Tips for Parents: Conflict Resolution

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I’m part of a task force that includes a number of different stakeholders with diverse backgrounds and opinions and desires and fears. We are doing important work and sometimes, it is amazing to me that we are able to move forward at all, given the complexity of the issue we’re trying to untangle and the range of ideas we bring to the table. And frankly, it wouldn’t happen if we didn’t have some amazing facilitators keeping us on track, pushing us out of our comfort zones, and sometimes using some pretty cool tools to help us get clarity.

One such tool that I loved seemed to me to be immediately applicable to the parent/teen relationship, if only because it helps get us to the places where we really need to talk.

We were divided in to small groups of four to do this exercise, but I think it’s doable with one parent and one child, or as an entire family unit.

The first step is to identify what the issue is: for example, curfew or social media activity.

Next, talk about where your ideas Align and where they Diverge. Make a column for each and lists underneath. No explanation is necessary at this point, it’s just a way to identify where you all agree and where the ideas are different. It may seem simple, but it can be eye-opening to truly understand where everyone’s head is, and it might be surprising to realize that you align in quite a few areas (ie. kids’ safety, kids’ social connections, etc.)

It may be that the only thing anyone agrees on is that the current status is not workable for anyone, and that’s ok. It’s a starting point, and by defining what it is that everyone thinks is going awry with this current situation, you may discover some additional insights.

When you’ve made your lists, start exploring the divergence. Look for barriers and opportunities – is there a way to honor the alignment and build a solution? Even if you can’t come to consensus about the solution, this is a great way to learn something about each other and more fully flesh out where each individual’s values and priorities lie.

We Can Do Better (Talking to Each Other)

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The more I watch and engage in public discourse, the more I believe that one of the most important things we can do for our children and our society is to learn and practice new ways of communicating with each other.

Right now, we’re learning to engage with each other in ways that are damaging and thoughtless and building habits that perpetuate harm and disconnection. Trading memes and sound bites, labeling each other based on assumptions, and not acknowledging the emotions that are being generated as a result only serve to polarize us more and make it harder to find common ground.

Non-violent communication (NVC) is a phrase most often associated with Marshall Rosenberg and a specific method of interaction, and I find the basic principles incredibly useful and sensible. Unfortunately, when I try to put it in to practice, I often find it to be rote and robotic, and often, if only one person is embracing the practice, it feels awkward.

Because of this, I’ve thought a lot about how to build the ideas in to a way of conversing that feel more natural to me. [I am absolutely not disparaging the work of Rosenberg. I see this more as building on it and working to make it accessible to other folks who may feel the same about the role-playing as I do. I am tremendously grateful for the work he and others have done in this area.] To that end, I’ve put together a list of things I think are necessary for more compassionate, purposeful communication.

  • GENUINE CURIOSITY – Going in to a conversation or dialogue where you’re convinced you “know” and it’s your intent to teach the other person or get them to adopt your perspective is not conducive to an honest, respectful exchange.
  • TIME – This kind of interchange takes effort. It requires pauses to digest what the other person is saying, an attempt to ‘read’ their body language and tone, and it’s important to make sure you’ve really understood what they’re trying to say to you. This doesn’t come quickly. And it’s challenging. We often want conversations to be quick and simple – especially when they are about difficult subjects. 
  • WILLINGNESS TO BE UNCOMFORTABLE – Learning requires growth, and NVC is about learning. It is also often about giving up the idea that there is a Right and a Wrong conclusion, or that there is any clear conclusion at all. That is scary. Our brains are wired to look for certainty, and we’ve been taught that the ideal outcome of any interaction is a winner and a loser. In order to communicate this way, we have to give up those ideas and sink in to uncertainty and really listen for what resonates as we navigate the conversations. And we have to be open to the possibility that more profound understanding is the outcome, as opposed to a concrete resolution. 
  • EMPATHY – Being willing to entertain the notion that someone else’s perspective is both very different from yours and also totally valid is key. Empathy is about acknowledging everyone’s right to feel the way they feel, honoring their lived experience even when we can’t understand it, and not judging them for the conclusions they’ve come to based on those experiences. It is also about a feeling of compassion for someone who is struggling and resisting the urge to minimize it, justify it, or fix it. 
  • DESIRE TO CONNECT, LEARN, UNDERSTAND – This kind of conversation leads to deeper, more authentic connections between people. Anytime someone feels that their world view is heard, validated, and respected, they learn to trust a little bit more. When we can enter in to a dialogue by setting aside the need to be Right or exercise our power, and set the intention to learn, we are creating a setting where we can connect on a deeper level. 
  • PRACTICE – Most of us have grown up watching people battle it out for supremacy in debates – whether by coercion or negotiation or outright fighting. We have been conditioned to think that any conversation that doesn’t require a definitive conclusion is “small talk” or “fluffy.” It takes a lot of time and patience to undo those lessons. 
  • EVERYONE ON EQUAL FOOTING, FEELING HEARD AND RESPECTED AND LEARNING – When we begin by “othering” the person we’re talking to (thinking we know what they believe, labeling them, mentally listing all the ways they are different than us or the things they ‘don’t know’), we’ve already made the interaction ten times harder. Starting with the assumption that the person we’re engaging with deserves equal time and opportunity to talk, and that they know things that might be valuable for us, allows us to be more receptive to what they’re saying. Eye rolls, sarcasm, mocking, and labeling change the dynamic so that not everyone feels respected and heard. 

The added bonus of this kind of conversation is that it doesn’t trigger our fight/flight response because we’re not automatically on guard. When we’re focused on learning and leading with curiosity and empathy, we are less likely to be emotional, which means that our pre-frontal cortex is working more effectively. We are able to think critically and learn better. But that’s only when all the participants are willing to show up with empathy and curiosity and a willingness to be uncomfortable. Even one person who doesn’t use the above tools can trigger emotional responses that derail the conversation and lead us back to those old habits. 

Tips for Parents and Educators: “The Complex Yes”

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Practicing the Complex Yes

When you disagree with a friend,

a stranger, or a foe, how do you

reply but not say simply No?

For No can stop the conversation

or turn it into argument or worse –

the conversation that must go on, as a river

must, a friendship, a troubled nation.

So may we practice the repertoire

of complex yes:

Yes, and in what you say I see…

Yes, and at the same time…

Yes, and what if…?

Yes, I hear you, and how…?

Yes, and there’s an old story…

Yes, and as the old song goes…

Yes, and as a child told me once…

Yes. Yes, tell me more. I want to understand…

      and then I want to tell you how it is for me….

Kim Stafford

As parents and educators, when we are trying to create and maintain strong, trusting relationships with adolescents, there are times when we need to distance ourselves from our role as “teacher” or “mentor” and become simply listeners. This is where the “complex Yes” comes in, and I believe that it is the second to last line of this poem that is the most effective approach.

Yes. Yes, tell me more. I want to understand…

This approach signals to the student or child that we are not interested in convincing them of anything, diminishing the importance of their ideas or thoughts or feelings, or proving them wrong. It is a message that we are curious, that we are on equal footing, or maybe even that roles have reversed for a bit and they are invited to become our teachers, to introduce us to something we may not have considered before, to a new perspective. This is an incredibly powerful and simple way to build confidence in teens and let them practice with their own unique voice and it opens the door to a richer relationship. It isn’t easy to break ourselves of the habit to correct or guide or offer our opinion, but with practice, I think you’ll see the value of it – both for your connection with the other person and in their own growth and development.

Building Adolescent Self-Worth: Recognizing Alternate Forms of Wealth

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There is a great deal of emphasis placed on comparison and measuring up during the adolescent years, and if students are not coming from similar backgrounds with the same level of support, it can be hard to feel confident in your ability to add value. When we talk about diversity and equity in schools, we are often looking at the resources students and their families have in terms of economic wealth – is there enough food at home, enough money to afford extras like tutors and testing and uniforms and sporting activities, flexibility with regard to parents and caregivers to support students where and how they need it. These are vital questions, and if you’re a student who doesn’t have a great deal of financial security, it can feel as though you don’t have the same kinds of opportunities as other students who do.

Dr. Tara Yosso developed something she calls the Cultural Wealth Model as she thought about helping students who historically don’t have access to post-secondary education. It is a way for students to re-frame their thoughts about the strengths they can draw on as they apply for jobs or college and it’s a powerful acknowledgment that there are many skills and abilities that have nothing to do with money that are incredibly valuable nonetheless.

I first learned about this model last weekend when I attended a conference on social-emotional learning and equity and I believe that this has the potential to impact all students and encourage them to think about the things they may take for granted that they can instead use as assets. I’m currently designing a lesson wherein students can make their own “alternative wealth maps,” even adding other categories beyond the ones Dr. Yosso talks about. I practiced by making my own and I’ve included it below as an example. The double arrows indicate the areas that work together to amplify wealth. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this model and how you might apply it to remind adolescents that they have a lot to offer to their communities.

Mindfulness in Real Life

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When I took the pups for a walk this morning before most of the rest of the neighborhood woke up, I set out with the intention of simply paying attention to my surroundings, appreciating the flowers in my neighbors’ yards, the smell of the air after a hard rain last night, the sound of the birds talking to each other and their babies. It wasn’t long before I was distracted, however, which is akin to what happens sometimes when I sit down to meditate. Some people call it ‘monkey mind,’ but in this case, it was puppy mind. The dogs were pulling me in two different directions, each of them intent on tasting whatever they could – small sticks, bits of gravel, discarded wrappers and chewing gum they discovered on the ground. Over and over again, I tugged one back toward me with a harsh Leave It! I nearly laughed out loud when I realized that this is what I do to myself when my thoughts stray during meditation and I resolved to be more gentle. These puppies are doing what comes naturally to them – exploring their world with their mouths. Anger won’t change that. I can be more gentle in redirecting them (and simultaneously look forward to the day when I can take them for a walk and they will lift their heads up and look forward and walk smoothly instead of letting their noses lead the way in some winding treat scavenger hunt).

(The actual events of the walk did not change with this realization, but my response did.)

THIS IS MINDFULNESS. The recognition that there is a stimulus-response occurring and that I have the power to stretch out that hyphen between them, reflect on it a bit, and change the response to one that is more purposeful, more gentle, more positive without ever trying to change the stimulus.

As we rounded the next corner, I saw a neighbor up ahead walking to work. I didn’t want to shatter the quiet, so I just observed him as he walked into and then out of my field of vision. Once he had passed out of my sight, a small sedan came zipping down the street – going well over the speed limit – a young woman behind the wheel bopping her head to her music and peering in the mirror of her visor. I felt my blood pressure rise and lamented the fact that I was too far away from her to catch her eye and send her some kind of signal that she needed to Slow Down, for God’s sake!! My jaw clenched and my hands tightened around the leashes despite the fact that we were fully half a block from the street she had just raced down. I was furious.

Oh. Yeah. I was furious. THIS IS MINDFULNESS

Noticing the word furious bouncing around in my brain, coupled with my physiological responses and the urge to dispel the tension in my hands and face and chest by yelling or flipping her off was enough to stretch out that hyphen space.

 

Stimulus                                       –                                        Response

 

Was I really angry? Yes.

Why? Fear.

The sudden appearance of this fast moving car on the heels of seeing my neighbor walk along that road sent my mind racing. As soon as I saw her driving quickly down the street, seemingly not paying close attention to her surroundings, I conjured up images of a horrible accident. My mind spun off into horrible scenarios: her not being able to stop in time for the crosswalk right in front of her; not even seeing a small child or pet racing across the street to catch a ball or chase a squirrel; crashing sounds, twisted metal, glass shattering on the roadway.

Even though none of that happened, even though two blocks ahead of her was a stoplight that would surely be red this time of the morning, my conditioned response to fear of potential disaster was anger.

Well, what about next time? She clearly didn’t learn anything this time. She’ll most certainly drive that quickly down this road again and maybe next time it won’t be fine. I wish I could catch up with her and tell her to pay more attention. 

I watched as my mind created stories about her – she was out after a long night of partying and had to race home before her parents noticed she was gone. She was an entitled rich kid (she was driving a fairly new Audi sedan) who only thought about herself. She was looking in her visor to put on her makeup instead of watching the road.

I nearly laughed out loud at the elaborate tales my mind created in order to sustain my anger response. THIS IS MINDFULNESS

All of this happened in the space of about 30 seconds but by remaining curious and separate from my thoughts and physiological responses, I was able to move through the fear and anger and gently redirect my mind back to the walk, the flowers and the quiet and the dogs who were now wrestling with each other on the wet grass at my feet. Instead of holding on to that tightness, elaborating on that story, striding home to tell my kids about the crazy person who sped down the street and nearly killed the neighbor this morning, I took a deep breath and let my shoulders drop.

THIS IS MINDFULNESS.

I may still sit today with my eyes closed and clear my mind for a while in formal meditation. But even if I don’t, I am reaping the benefits of mindfulness practice by doing my best to extend it to the other parts of my life where my stimulus-response mechanism can have enormous effects on my mood and the way I interact with others.

As someone who teaches mindfulness to parents and teens, more important than sitting in formal meditation is this ability to unpack our immediate reactions and really pay attention to the stories we tell ourselves nearly every minute of every day. That kind of mindfulness has such an enormous impact on our relationships with others, and when you’re a teenager, relationships are the most important thing in your world. With any luck, teaching teens to examine the stories they tell about their world can lead to looking at the stories they tell themselves about who they are, and it can have an effect on their self-worth. Challenging those stories that are often untrue (but convenient) is the first step to really opening up and recognizing that so much of what we think is true is simply fabricated. And it gives us the space to relax, to be, and to create what we want in that place the old story left behind.

 

How Our Brains Reinforce Our Biases

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By Department of Radiology, Uppsala University Hospital. Uploaded by Mikael Häggström. [CC0 or CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

Brain researchers talk about two systems of thought in our brains – one that reacts quickly and intuitively and the other that is more complicated and methodical. The busier we are, the more we rely on the first one to make our decisions for us. Unfortunately, even though that system makes fairly good choices sometimes, the more we rely on it, the stronger it gets. Also unfortunately, because that system takes a lot less energy and time, we default to it more readily.  And over time, this decision-making system is self-reinforcing; meaning that it learns and uses past experiences to inform split-second decisions in the moment.

Not engaging the second system to reflect and use our inquisitive powers to make decisions can significantly affect our world view and the way we absorb information and ultimately reinforce the biases we have.  Because our brains and our culture haven’t evolved to take the time to challenge assumptions and really dive in to complex questions, it takes practice to overcome our knee-jerk reactions. But even more than that, the reason we can make those instant judgments is because of associations we’ve learned to make.

Our brains largely remember things based on how they relate to other things. That’s why we have to work so hard to memorize random dates and names, but if we put them to music or create some system around them that makes more sense, we can more easily lodge them in our memory banks. But sometimes those associations are simply manufactured, and this can be terribly harmful from time to time.

If you grew up in a family that taught you to associate people with a certain skin color with danger, when you’re in a hurry or otherwise engaged, you’ll fall back on those biases and  make choices based on them. Even if you “know better” or have friends of color, you’re more likely to make snap judgments based on associations you have. It takes real effort to examine the narratives that drive our behavior and interrupt those associations that are not valid.

If your knee-jerk reactions are rooted in fear or discomfort, the way our brains work, those thoughts have more weight than other thoughts, which means it takes more effort over time to dismantle them. It’s human nature to take the path of least resistance and, in fact, we are often considered “efficient” when we don’t take a long time to make decisions. As I said, often, those choices are perfectly fine and even beneficial, but when they involve relationships with other people about whom we may have biases, it is important to slow down and really pull apart where we might be making thought errors. The more we can do this with adolescents, the more comfortable they get with it and the more likely they are to be able to challenge their thinking errors over time – with respect to themselves and others.

One important exercise teachers can do with students to illustrate this phenomenon is to set up some common, everyday decision points and have students share what their first reaction would be and what it’s based on. Write those down and see if there are patterns. Are some of the choices based in fear or risk-avoidance? Where can students challenge those assumptions? Given an ample bit of time to access their reflective brain, would they make a different choice? It’s true that often our instincts guide us in beneficial ways, but there are times when it’s more in our best interest to stop and question whether those choices are rooted in things that aren’t accurate.

Next time: how our unconscious biases affect the way we see ourselves.

When Mindfulness is Better Taken Out of the Mind

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Sometimes, it seems ironic to me that my mindfulness practice is so much about not getting caught up in my thoughts and stories. Especially when I am feeling intense emotions, I know that the best thing I can do is NOT engage with my rational mind.

From the time we can form words, we use them to make sense of our world by creating stories about what we see and hear and feel. We make assumptions and connect dots and come to conclusions that may or may not be accurate but as long as they fit our view of the world, we rarely challenge them. And over time, those stories become habitual and we launch in to them without even taking a moment to realize that’s what we’re doing.

Mindfulness is about taking a moment. It’s about recognizing that the stories are just that. And it’s hard to do, which is why I use my body to interrupt my mind when I’m feeling scared or sad or angry or frustrated. I like to imagine that these intense emotions trigger a severing of my body from my brain so that I can really direct my attention to my physical being and ignore what my mind is telling me is happening.

When I am “in my body,” I use this opportunity to ask questions:

Where am I feeling this emotion? Is there a burning in my gut? A tightness in my face or jaw? What are my hands doing? How am I breathing? How am I moving?

What happens if I breathe in to the place where I’m feeling the most intensity? Can I close my eyes and imagine the intake of breath sending warmth to a specific area? Can I relax it or slow it down? What does that feel like?

Once I’ve really tuned in to my body and maybe calmed down the physical reaction, then I can turn my attention to my thoughts. Because I’m not in the throes of the emotional reaction anymore, I can be more objective about what’s happening in my head. I can stand aside a bit and witness the story without being caught up in it, and at this point, I can assess whether it’s real or if I’m filling in blanks without having all the information.

It seems a little odd to call this “mindfulness” when I start out by completely divorcing myself from my mind’s reaction, but this is the best way I’ve found to make sure I can keep from getting immersed in the story when I’m in the midst of a fiery emotion.

What is Non-Violent Communication and Why Does it Matter?

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Bhuston at English Wikipedia [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

One of the foundations of The SELF Project’s parent and student curriculum is non-violent communication. For people who haven’t encountered this term before, it can seem a bit strange, but it is an important piece of understanding how to have strong, mutually respectful, healthy, compassionate relationships.

So what is it?

The term itself was coined by Marshall Rosenberg, a psychologist, whose life’s work revolved around the notion of compassionate connection and individual needs. He believed that if we could distill our communication with others down to which of our needs we were trying to get met, we could then begin to find strategies to meet those needs in concert with others rather than at odds with them.

Non-violent communication does not involve guilt or shame, power or control tactics, or manipulation. It is a way of communicating where each individual is sincerely interested in the needs of the other and validates their right to have those needs. It also involves taking personal responsibility for one’s feelings, actions, and sometimes, coming to terms with the fact that your needs cannot or won’t be met.

Why does it matter?

As teachers and parents, we generally assume a level of power and authority that can lead us to set up communication patterns with children that are rooted in violent communication (that is, shame/blame, power/control, manipulation). And while those tactics might work to keep things peaceful for a while, they aren’t long-term strategies for creating trusting relationships.

Threats of punishment, taking away privileges as a punishment, tit-for-tat rhetoric or behavior, and “because I said so” are all examples of this kind of violent communication. They might be effective at squashing behaviors short-term, but they won’t foster relationship or ultimately teach the child skills that will serve them as adults.

Non-violent communication is also about really understanding where someone else is coming from. Because it involves being really curious about what someone’s behaviors or rhetoric is trying to say about what needs they have that aren’t being met, it fosters compassion. I often use the phrases “hurt people hurt people” and “where there is bad behavior, there is pain.” Both of those are reflective of the notion that we express ourselves negatively when we need something we aren’t getting. Using non-violent communication techniques can help parents and teachers begin to understand what is at the root of certain behaviors or relationship dynamics.

We have all had at least one ‘a-ha’ moment when our assumptions about why a kid was acting out were proven to be horribly wrong. I once knew a mom whose (pre-verbal) toddler was throwing a massive tantrum and she got increasingly frustrated and angry as she tried nearly everything to calm him down – food, drink, cuddling, shushing, threatening. He was arching his back and pulling at his overalls and causing quite the scene. It was only when she finally laid him down to check his diaper that she realized he had somehow slipped a fork down inside his overalls and the tines were stabbing him in the genitals. No wonder he was screaming!

These techniques, when used by parents and teachers, are also a good way to teach kids how to get curious about their own feelings and motivations. So often, we react to pain or frustration in less than desirable ways without even really thinking about it, but the earlier we can learn to identify what is behind those strong feelings, the better. We will be able to express ourselves to people without them becoming defensive or angry and are more likely to get our needs met in the end. It’s an important life skill to have.

Think about how much easier your life might be if your co-worker or boss was able to come to you and say, “I am feeling really anxious right now because I need this report to be absolutely perfect. I know you’re on a deadline, but would you consider helping me by proofreading it?” That is non-violent communication. Unfortunately, there aren’t many adults who talk to others that way – especially when they’re stressed and anxious. What would it be like if more people did? The agitated person in line behind you, the police officer who is worried you pose a threat, your mother-in-law…. Don’t we want our kids to have this skill, too?

It also teaches us how to negotiate by helping find common ground. Because we all have needs, if both the adult and the adolescent can get really clear on what those needs are, they can also begin to work out whether the strategies each person has been using to meet those needs are at odds. If they are, there’s a chance to get creative and work together to find a solution that works for everyone.

The more we can find ways to work together to get all our needs met, the fewer stand-offs we’ll have. The fewer kids will get kicked out of class or their house. 

Questions? Please comment below and I’ll do my best to answer them. If you want to know about NVC more in depth, check out any of the books by Marshall Rosenberg.