Learning to Make a Connection by Maureen Eich VanWalleghan

Has anyone heard of Nonviolent Communication (NVC)? I know I have mentioned it here before and I thought I would write about it again. This is revolutionary stuff. In a nutshell: nonviolent communication is making a CONNECTION with another person through communication by identifying one’s own needs and the other person’s needs as well and then working to meet both.

This really is revolutionary in that so much of my communication is about power...power over another. Me asserting that I am right. That my way is the correct and often only way. That what I want and need is the most important thing on the table or that the other person’s needs are more important than my own.

Nonviolent communication addresses all of that. I first discovered NVC when I took a local NVC workshop for parents. The eight-week workshop not only helped me improved how I interacted with my daughter, but it impacted my marriage as well. I took a second eight-week workshop, which gave me more skills with my daughter, but I didn’t use it with my husband and I basically fell off the wagon because NVC is a discipline. To really commit to this style of communication is to connect deeply with the self.

The “fall off” for me has been the process of being consumed by difficulties in life: lack of work, money issues and a general malaise I have felt about trying to pursue filmmaking as a career. Also my husband’s work has been a roller coaster ride and my daughter’s school has been tiresome in its general disorganization. In short, I have felt powerless and with an overwhelming sense that I had no control in my life. Oh yeah, I did I say I was a mother?Nuff said!

A retired friend, who I went hiking with last year, is very into NVC. In our discussion about the NVC process she explained that NVC for her was about self talk. This notion has stuck with me. As someone who yells way too much and has spent a great deal of time speaking unkindly to my husband, I realized that every crappy thing I say to him, I also say to myself. I have spent a deal of energy berating myself for pretty much everything. And so it has been in the muck and mud—of my consuming anger about everything—that not much communication has happened.

So here’s where I could go into a big sell moment about NVC, instead I am going to pose a few questions and list some books and websites below for anyone who wants to check nonviolent communication.

• Nonviolent communication: a language of life by Marshall B. Rosenberg
• Raising Children Compassionately by Marshall B. Rosenberg
• The Center for Nonviolent Communication
• Parenting from Your Heart by Inbal Kashtan
• Google Inbal Kashtan
• Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids by Sura Hart and Victoria Kindle Hodson
• Peaceful Living, Daily Meditations for Living with Love, Healing, and Compassion by Mary Mackenzie
• Peace Workshop International

Here’s the questions: When you speak what is your goal? Are your words spoken to connect deeply with another human being? Consider the everyday interactions, particularly the interactions that are difficult. Talking to a child’s teacher. Dealing with a store clerk regarding an error. Negotiating help at home with a child who’s room is messy. Planning a family vacation with a harried husband. This list goes on and on. Everyday one must communicate and that is a very big and difficult task. I invite you to check out NVC as a way to lighten your heart and feel a sense of connection in the thing we spend so much time doing: communicating.

7 Going on 13 - By Cara Potapshyn Meyers

My son wanted jeans. He wanted them because all of the boys in school wear jeans and because all of the skateboard “dudes” wears jeans. And my son wants to be the next Tony Hawk (for those of you out there who either have only girls or boys too young to be interested in skateboarding, Tony Hawk is the ultimate skateboard champion. Just thought you might want to know that).

In any event, my son thinks he is already a “tween.” And from an informal poll, so do a lot of other kids my son’s age. I have a friend who has a daughter (also age 7), who begged her Mom to take her to Abercrombie & Fitch to buy spaghetti strap tanks WITH PUSH UP BRAS IN THEM!!! What 7-year-old girl needs a push up bra?!? (From what I hear, Abercrombie & Fitch is receiving a lot of flack from parents regarding this item). Where does it end?? Or does it?

These types of scenarios are becoming all too common as our children are reaching for adult status. My son watches iCarly and The Suite Life of Zach and Cody, both which are meant for tweens, but as far as sitcoms go, they are fairly tame. When I brought these shows up in conversation at a birthday party recently, almost every Mom not only knew of these television shows, but admitted that their 7 and 8 year olds watch them too. I was shocked, but I wasn’t.

According to Diane Levin, Ph.D, professor of education at Wheelock College in Boston, the message that kids are taking away from these shows and entertainers is that buying the “right” items (i.e. my son’s jeans), or looking the “right” way, (as in wearing an Abercrombie & Fitch tank with a push up bra), are what determine a child’s value as a person.

This is nothing new. I remember haranguing my Mom to buy me Levis with the leather tag on the waist so that I would “fit it” with my peers. However, I was 14, not 7. Studies have revealed that girls who are obsessed with their appearance at earlier ages are more prone to take up smoking, become depressed and develop eating disorders as they get older. Boys, on the other hand, are getting the message that they need to appear active and tough to be considered cool. They also risk becoming depressed if they don’t measure up. I’ve heard 7 and 8 year old boys ask when they can “work out” at their parent’s gym! My first thought was, “Go outside and play!” But that is fodder for a whole different blog.

How, as concerned parents, can we keep our young kids, well, young kids? One way is to stay connected to your children. Your messages are far more influential to your children whether you think so, or not. And ask questions: Why does your child like to watch iCarly? It could be simply the antics that go on, as my son pointed out to me. The goal is to keep the lines of communication open, so that when bigger issues come up with your child (and they will), your child will feel safe talking with you about them. You don’t need to have all of the answers; simply acknowledging the social pressures your child has to deal with is enough. And that you are always there for them, without judgment.

As for my son’s jeans, he gave up wearing them for now. He has Sensitivity Disorders and said the jeans were too stiff and gave him a “wedgy,” (Hmm...let me guess where he learned  that word?). But there will be other items that my son will have to have in order to stay “cool.” And what I will have to do is remember back to my Levis with the leather tag on the waist! That’s all that we’ll need to get through another episode of childhood angst!