A new way of looking at parents' relationship with their children

1. Perception Matters: Honoring your child’s experience and perspective is essential to maintaining open communication. This includes a type of listening that focuses on the unique stories each child holds and acknowledging their experiences as well as whatever feelings and needs have been stimulated. It’s less about what is said and more about what is felt. So long as a story triggers pain in someone, we can hold it with respect and care, regardless of its substance. Lederman says “Connection means caring more about what is in someone’s heart than what is coming out of their mouth”. 
   
   
2. Opposing Points of View: It is within our capacity to cultivate significant connections even when confronted with contrasting viewpoints. Achieving this requires acquiring the skill of respectfully considering your child’s perspective, even if we strongly disagree, without becoming overly attached or preoccupied with it. By redirecting our attention towards comprehending and validating the underlying feelings and needs behind our children's anger, instead of perceiving it as a personal failing, we create an atmosphere that nurtures connection. Empathizing with your child’s perceptions and beliefs, separate from your perceptions or beliefs is extremely connecting and healing, as it is such a gift to hold space for children who often don’t get to occupy space without acting out. It is within this compassionate space you hold that a child’s authenticity gets nurtured instead of suppressed.
   
   
3. Use Judgment, Carefully: Our connection to our shared humanity diminishes when we evaluate words or actions based on rigid standards of right or wrong, good or bad, and appropriate or inappropriate. In doing so, we overlook the innocence that underlies children’s intentions (simply trying to meet needs), which is crucial for fostering compassion. Sustaining connection requires us to cultivate compassion and use judgment carefully. So often, we find ourselves judging children and taking a firm stance against certain behaviors. We might even take a firm stance against certain actions. In NVC consciousness, the intention is not to eliminate judgment altogether, but instead of moralistically judging others as right or wrong, we utilize judgment to discern what aligns with our own needs or values. Then from within that clarity and compassion, we can share our needs and values as well as our preferred strategies in ways that feel like a gift to the other person.
   
   
4. Everyone’s Needs Matter: Everything anyone (child or adult) does is to meet their universal human needs. When you simply tell your child to stop doing something, without first connecting to their needs, you essentially communicate that their needs don’t matter. This contributes to three key needs that often go chronically unmet in children, resulting in the toxic submit-rebel paradigm that most parent-child relationships fall into. Those three needs are their need to be heard, to have choice, and trust that their needs matter. When children believe that they don’t have a choice and that their needs don’t matter, they believe they either need to submit to their parents or rebel against them. NVC collaborative parenting is all about creating a quality of connection where BOTH the parent’s and child’s needs matter and will be cared for, not the child’s needs at the expense of the parent’s or vice versa.
   
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5. Understanding Submission = Rebellion: Rebellion and submission are two faces of the same coin.  Children tend to adopt a submissive stance early in their development because they lack power and autonomy. However, as they transition into adolescence and begin to experience increased power and agency, they tend to shift towards rebellion. Surprisingly, submission and rebellion are two manifestations of the same underlying disconnection that gets entrenched in family dynamics from very early on. And it is this dynamic that leads to rebellious teenagers and painful disharmony, not genetics or hormones.
   
   
6. Children Yearn Connection with Family: Teenagers want to be independent, but they don’t want to rebel and disconnect from their parents. Lederman says that “Most teenagers with whom we have worked long for a deeper connection with their parents.” Sadly, they simply don’t know how to achieve that without losing their autonomy and power, nor do they trust that their parents want to connect with them more than telling them what’s good for them or what they should do. Their rebellion is a tragic strategy to meet their precious needs for choice and freedom that they will always choose if they believe to be in relationship with their parents they must suppress their needs.”
   
   
7. P.L.A.E: As parents, we have two fundamental needs regarding our children: the need for peace of mind that they will be okay and the need to contribute to their well-being. NVC collaborative parenting goes beyond simply prescribing a specific amount of quality time to spend together or requiring engagement in particular activities together; it is primarily about how we show up. Life quickly becomes miserable if we believe there is such a thing as a “good parent.” Instead focus on showing up in a way that supports your child’s authenticity to come out while also supporting needs for health, safety, and wellbeing. The acronym P.L.A.E. (“play”) - Presence, Loving Attention, and Empathy - holds the key to nurturing your child's authentic self and fostering acceptance. When unsure about what to do, being emotionally present, offering loving and caring attention, and empathizing with their experiences can make a significant impact. Approach your child with compassion and clear intention, and remember that effective parenting is not about achieving perfection all the time, but rather adopting a mindset that acknowledges misfires and mistakes, seeks to repair and reestablish connection, and strives to do our best with the skills and awareness we have in that moment. With this intention as our guiding principle, maintaining a deep connection with our children will always remain within reach. Lederman ends with “If parents could simply P.L.A.E. with their children, then we believe this world would be a much better place for both children and parents”. 

Dr. Alona Pulde is a board-certified practitioner of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine and Family Medicine Physician. She specializes in reversing disease using nutrition and lifestyle medicine. She helped create and led the lifestyle-improvement program used in the private medical center she cofounded, Transition To Health, and continues to lead for the Whole Foods Market Medical & Wellness Centers.

Dr. Matthew Lederman, MD is a board-certified Internal Medicine physician & CNVC Certified Trainer of Nonviolent Communication. He is particularly passionate about integrating mind-body health treatment and providing second medical opinions for patients with persistent chronic disease.