4 Reasons to Repair with your Child
And 6 Ways Nonviolent Communication Can Help
What happens when we mess up with our kids? We all do it, but if we want to repair, it’s helpful to know what we’re repairing.
When I mess up I tend to get angry or frustrated. I want things to go exactly as I want them. I end up being intimidating to my kids. To be clear, the anger and frustration aren’t the messing up part.1 Being intimidating is. 2
For this post, I will use the idea that messing up is when we have “flipped our lid” 3 and our behaviour is disconnected, and lacking insight.
“The postconflict step of repairing the relational breach is crucial.”
Why though? Why is it it crucial? Why not, when we have had conflict with our children, when we have said something hurtful, or brought a scary or intimidating energy to our interaction, why not just move on and pretend like nothing happened? Why bring it all back up again?
Here are a few ideas:
Did you know our interpersonal interactions actually shape the way our brain develops? 4
For our children, conflict with us (their primary source of love) and the disconnection that creates, fuels and is fueled by it, has the potential to be developmentally negative.5
But, (big but) when we repair disconnection quickly with our children, we bring them back from separation and into the emotionally safe place of togetherness.
When we make repairs after disconnection, we model the skills of making repair.
When we make repairs with our children they get to experience relationship rupture and then reconnection - and that they survived.
When we make repairs, rather than leaving our children to internalize shame and humiliation, we bring them into connection and belonging with us.
What does repair look like though?
I imagine you know what it doesn’t look like. I imagine many of us have received phony apologies. Or apologies that are so intense they are designed (likely unconsciously) to get us to help the other person feel better. We may have even authored some of these attempts at repair ourselves.
“Repair requires the recognition that a rupture has taken place in the attunement process, and then the realignment of states in the two individuals involved.” 6
In parenting, we adults have the power. Even though it doesn’t seem like it sometimes. And what the above quote is asking us to do as parents, in my interpretation, is to bring self-responsibility, shamelessness, open-hearted curiosity, empathy, and understanding to our repairs. And through that we realign our states in ways that are healthy, safe, trust-building and connecting with our children.
Now, for me, nonviolent communication offers a beautifully simplistic, and yet spiritually open way to bring all of this to a repair. The needs-consciousness that NVC asks us to hold can remove shame, allowing us to bring full responsibility to our actions. It allows us to be open-hearted and curious with our children. It brings our consciousness into an empathic state and helps us understand the experiences of our children.
And when we can remove shame from our interactions with our children, we increase a sense of belonging and safety.
When we can transform our inner sense of shame to one that is needs-oriented it is easier to take full responsibility for our behaviour in the rupture of our relationship. (And our kids get to see what that looks like too!)
When we can come to our children in empathy and understanding, the resonance that we create between us increases their trust in us and in our connection.
And when we can come to our children with empathy and understanding we give them the experience of being seen.
When we more fully understand our children and give them the space and safety to begin to understand us, we develop a deep, authentic connection.
And in all this interpersonal resonance, safety, trust, connection and belonging, our children know they matter.
This is what I want for my children. This is the atmosphere in which I want their brains to be wiring. Acceptance, belonging, mattering, being seen, heard and understood.
To get a fuller understanding of what an NVC supported repair might look like sign up for my free NVC-sharing circle, Repairing Towards Deeper Trust and Connection, in collaboration with Shelton Timberland Library.
* References
Rosenberg, Marshall B., Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, 3rd Ed, Puddledancer Press, 2015
Siegel, Daniel J., and Payne Bryson, Tina, The Power of Showing Up: How Parental Presence Shapes Who Our Kids Become and How Their Brains Get Wired, Random House, 2020
Siegel, Daniel J., and Payne Bryson, Tina, The Power of Showing Up: How Parental Presence Shapes Who Our Kids Become and How Their Brains Get Wired, Random House, 2020, p103
Siegel, Daniel J., The Developing Mind: How Relationships and The Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, Guilford Press, 2020 p53
Siegel, Daniel J., The Developing Mind: How Relationships and The Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, Guilford Press, 2020, p401
Siegel, Daniel J., and Payne Bryson, Tina, The Power of Showing Up: How Parental Presence Shapes Who Our Kids Become and How Their Brains Get Wired, Random House, 2020, p103