My son and I are on a walk with our dog when out of the blue he asks me, “What’s an army Momma?” Hmm. One of those trick 4 year-old questions.
“An army is a group of people that defend a country,” I answer, happy with my PC reply.
“Oh,” he says. Then he asks, “What would you do if an army was trying to hurt me?”
I pause, realizing that this is not a hypothetical question for many parents, and feel the impact of that as well as not knowing how to answer. Dang it! I thought I was out of the woods.
“What would you do?” He repeats.
Whenever I am struggling with how to respond to someone, Non-Violent Communication (NVC) is always my solid ground. It’s a foundation not only of communication, but also of a belief system, that I rely on to help me stay as conscious and as non-judgmental as possible, which is difficult in a world obsessed with labeling everything as good or bad. In this case, the belief system I drew from is that people, regardless of their behavior, are always trying to get their needs met.
I reply, “I would ask the leader of the army what it was he was needing, and see if I could help him get his needs met without hurting you, because keeping you safe would be my need.” Seemingly satisfied, he runs ahead, pretending to be a dog chasing a stick. Whew.
Later that night, we are playing some version of the “good” guys and the “bad” guys, one of my least favorite games, as it reinforces the whole idea of judging people, the very thing I’m trying to teach him not to do. Nevertheless, I find my self in the midst of the game. We are the “good” guys. The “bad” guys approach.
“What are we going to do with them?” I ask him. “Put them in jail?”
He looks at me puzzled. “No, we are going to ask them what they need!”
I use this example to illustrate that small children can indeed be taught NVC. I hear often that it’s not possible, and I think that has more to do with parents losing their illusion of control than it does with the teach-ability of the skill.
So, how do you teach children NVC?
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