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Non-Violent Resistance An Introduction – One Day Workshop and Weekly Coaching with Parents

Available towards the end of 2020.

NVR is an empowering and non-physical method for carers to manage and connect with young people to reduce and eradicate violence and abuse.

Often, care-givers try to control to avoid being controlled and a downward spiral ensues. Many young people resist being controlled and the result is symmetrical escalation (carer and child both losing their temper and trying to control each other) or complementary escalation (where the child becomes more and more coercive and powerful, and their parents or caregivers increasingly give in to their demands). This can lead to feelings of being helpless, hopeless, manipulate, powerless, inadequate, frustrated and desperate. The primary goal of NVR is the repair and rebuilding of relationships within the family.

With the principles of NVR in place, a co-operative relationship is more likely to develop ensuring a more harmonious relationship.

The five cornerstones of NVR

To de-escalate conflict during emotionally charged incidents– parental emotional self-regulation. A common adage in NVR is strike whilst the iron is cold. In other words, no intervention other than making sure everyone is safe, until the child is calm and able to listen. This could be minutes, hours or days. This dovetails with the therapeutic parenting philosophy of connection before correction.

Prioritise problematic behaviour – learning to focus on and respond effectively to the most urgent issues; Parents are carers are encouraged to prioritise just two behaviours they want to see change. Others can be dealt with once the initial two have been resolved. This can be challenging when there are so many challenges, annoying habits, areas of defiance

Break the ‘seal of silence’, overcome parental isolation and develop support networks within the family and community; it is vital that caregivers have people they can call on to back up their stance and come to support when challenges escalate. This could be from friends, family, social workers and the police.

Raise parental or adult presence through several kinds of considered and organised protest:

a/taking nonviolent action

An organised protest could be an act of parental disobedience, not getting the drink that has been demanded or making them wait for 5 minutes for something. It may involve a sit in where the carer sits with the child and waits for them to suggest a solution to a problem.

b/ensuring there are regular relationship building activities

It is vital no matter how resistance the child to it, that the carer spends quality time with them, frequently and ideally daily

Repair the parent-child relationship through reconciliation and reparation gestures. When things have gone wrong, the onus is on the care giver to initiate the repair to the relationship. It is also for the parent to be mind-minded (another therapeutic parenting principle) where they imagine what it is like to be in the childs’ shoes and to reconnect with the positive feelings they have for the child. A gesture could be making the childs favourite dinner or watching a movie together.

Other principles include:

Extreme Self-care, a reflective form of communication and the NVR approach to punishment which is not to punish but to provide unexpected rewards and natural consequences. If for example there is an agreement that a child can have 8 hours on the xbox a week and they refuse to come off, a natural consequence is for them to have less time the following week.

It is not possible to put all the principles in place in one go and may take several months and it requires a high level of commitment from the caregiver to stick with the programme. For some the principles will be challenging in themselves and very different to their usual way of parenting. The results and rewards however can be immense and effect lasting change for the child and their behaviour.

This introductory workshop may be sufficient for some carers for whom the challenges are not so great. For others with deep seated challenges, in depth weekly or fortnightly coaching will be needed on a one to one or small group basis. This can be done via skype or zoom.