Dealing With Violent and Aggressive Children: Group Work and Mentoring For Parents/Carers

I've walked in your shoes!

I was a foster carer and then in 2011 adopted my son when he was three and who came with just about every single challenge ever recorded!! (or that’s how it felt!) The level of defiance, manipulation and tantrums were so extreme that I felt bullied, inadequate, sad, rejected and overwhelmed.

As he got older his manipulative behaviour became more sophisticated and he started to become violent towards me and our home. We had received a lot of assistance with behaviour management and DDP but it was following something called Non-Violent Resistance that really turned things around. I became so convinced in the method that I trained in it professionally.

My lived experience of child to parent violence, attachment disorder and blocked care, provides me with a unique empathy and understanding for other parents and carers.  Parents seem to warm me (I think/hope!) and readily identify with my teaching.

What is Non-Violent Resistance (NVR)? 

NVR is an empowering and non-physical method for parents and carers to manage and connect with children to reduce and eradicate violence and abuse. It also works with controlling and manipulative children. 

The aim of NVR is to re-stablish parental presence in the childs’ mind, rebuild and develop a co-operative, more harmonious relationship and for the balance of power to be addressed.

The need to control to avoid being controlled dissipates in both the child and parent.

Our Unique Programme -NVR combined with NLP, Solution Focused Therapy and Stress Management, aims to teach parents to:

• De-escalate conflict during emotionally charged incidents
• Prioritise problematic behaviour 
• Break the ‘seal of silence’, overcome the adults isolation and develop support networks within the family and community
• Raise parental or adult presence through several kinds of considered and organised protest and ensuring there are regular relationship building activities
• Repair the parent-child relationship through reconciliation gestures, repair and relationship based play
• Desist in engaging with the behaviour to disrupt the learnt and patterned negative behaviour of the child
• Ensure extreme self-care, practice self -regulation and meet their own needs
• Develop reflective forms of communication and non-verbal communication
• Apply the NVR approach to discipline and natural consequences 
• Apply NVR principles in a Trauma informed manner

The NVR course is a refreshing and practical course that doesn’t seek to change you or your child but focuses on changing the approach to the issues in a non-violent, non-confrontational way. The approach of natural and logical consequences was an eye-opener for me and wondered why did I not think of this before as a consistent and manageable way to deal with unacceptable behaviours. The trainer pitched this course so that there was something for everyone no matter where in your journey you were or your particular circumstances. The one-to-one support was then focused on your issues and altogether it is a course well worth doing if you are serious about changing your family’s happiness and of course health. I cannot praise it enough. Michelle 

I provide;

• A package of 8 x  two hour webinars and 4 one hour 1 to 1 coaching sessions 
• or 1 to 1 coaching to families on an individual or group work basis accompanied by an e-course. Sign up for a free trial 

Provision can be funded by the Adoption Support Fund for adopters and special guardians. Ask your adoption support  social worker to apply for this on your behalf. Call or email me to discuss if this is for you and to get dates for my next course.