From Rules to Needs

With Convergent Facilitation

Cats were not supposed to be in the house. “We’re bonding.”

I am trying to eliminate rules in our house.

I want to move towards a home where everyone’s needs matter and everyone feels seen and heard and understood. Where we form mutual agreements rather than top-down adult-only rules.

Here’s how we’re going about it.

A difficult-to-navigate topic has been rocks.

Specifically, rocks in the house.

“Daddy, do you like this beautiful rock?”

“Yes. I’d like it better if it was outside.”

The kids are rockhounds. All sorts of rocks meet their criteria for “beautiful”.

And they’re accumulating in the house.

This is a problem for me because it makes cleaning more difficult. It’s a problem for Matt because Matt enjoys order, and random rocks floating about on seemingly every surface isn’t very orderly. Also they might damage things. He very much likes to care for what he’s responsible for. Like the house. He likes his rocks like he likes his cats: outside.

Unfortunately, I also like beautiful rocks and have my own collection in a bowl.

The frustration and our attempts at keeping rock accumulation to a minimum collided a couple of days ago in angst and upset. Matt was ready to sternly tell the children the new set of rules. They could deal with it, because it was a “consequence” of their not cleaning up the rocks. (Except we don’t do obedience.) The kids were crying over whose rock belonged to whom. Everyone was upset.

I implored Matt to keep quiet and we would deal with it when everyone was calm. He reluctantly agreed, though not trusting that “dealing with it” would ever happen. We haven’t solved all of it but today went along way.

Lunchtime.

Everyone was in a good space and there was still 15 minutes or so before everyone was finished so I announced that I would like to have a family meeting where we discuss rocks and come up with solutions that work for everyone. Not just one person.

Joseph, seven, groaned, not trusting that any solutions would work for him.

My plan was to conduct a Convergent Facilitation process.

This process is three phases:
- criteria gathering
- proposal phase
- evaluation of proposals

I took out a piece of paper and pencil and sat down. I asked something along the lines of What is it that you want? We’re going to find out what is really important to you.

The purpose of the criteria gathering phase is to gather the noncontroversial essences. In other words the pieces on which we can all agree. Dissent is not only invited, it’s crucial.

I got to the criteria by asking everyone what they want and finding what it was underneath that strategy that was truly important to them. We get as close to the needs as we need to for it to be noncontroversial, but stay as close to strategy as we need to for it to be specific.

Our criteria for household rocks:

• The ability to look at collected rocks as often as we want;

• Rocks remain in a place that they don’t clutter up the house;

• Rocks are safe for the house - they cause no damage;

• The collection of rocks is safe from being thrown outside;

• The volume and size of rocks is safe for the house;

Then the proposal phase. It’s the creative portion. I called this agreement gathering. I told everyone we were coming up with agreements that took into consideration all of the criteria.

I said I wanted rocks washed outside.

“NO THAT DOESN’T WORK FOR ME,” my children yelled. (Proposal evaluation had snuck in.)

“Okay, why doesn’t it work for you? What do you want?”

In the end we added another criteria:

• There’s a warm, easy place to wash rocks.

Here are the agreements we came up with:

• Rocks stay in the bedrooms.

• They will be kept in a tub on the floor.

• There is a maximum size of rock that can come into the house.

• Mummy and Daddy will always request that rocks be moved to the bedroom before removing them from the house;

• Rocks removed from house will go into a tub on the porch;

• We will create a rock washing station outside with the hot water spigot;

• The children will be honest with each other about who found which rocks;

• Once in the bucket, rocks can be claimed by anyone.

The last point elicited an I KNEW this wouldn’t work for everyone. It only works for you. We addressed that by going back to the criteria and what is important to everyone.

At another point I made the suggestion that they could edit their rock collection and throw out the ones that they no longer found beautiful. That was met with an aghast “No! I would never throw rocks away!”

The whole thing took about 20 minutes.

At the end, the children excitedly ran around the house gathering rocks.

“Mummy, this one’s too big, I’m going to throw it outside.”

“Dad! I took ten rocks out of my room that I didn’t want!”

Joseph designed a rock washing station that will hold a colander and he plans to build it.

Had I announced there are new rules around the rocks and this is what they are and you are going to have to deal with it, I’m sorry, we would have ended our lunch time with everyone upset. Matt and I would have been holding space for crying whilst steeling ourselves to follow through. Joseph and Aubrey would have had no say it how one of their favorite pastimes is made meaningful. Their perspective wouldn’t have mattered.

Instead, we got to cohold what was important to our family as a whole.

The children experienced being seen, heard and understood. They experienced that they mattered, and their rock collection mattered to us. That gave them the freedom to choose whether or not to throw some rocks away. Turns out, they made the choice to do so.

Convergent Facilitation so helpful when there is dissent.

Another thing we have done when there is less disagreement is morph rules based on needs. Like this:

Cats:

Originally, the cats were not allowed in the house.

• Matt and I wanted the least amount of fur possible in the house. (Needs for order, health, cleanliness, ease.)

• We didn’t want to be dealing with cat litter. (Needs for ease, peace of mind)

But the cuteness overload and the fact that the children and cats will sit still for a while whilst snuggling together…well, how much fur is going to get on the couch?

So we’ve revisited it.

The cats can come in only if they are sitting still together with the children.

Needs met: connection, ease, peace, order, being seen, heard and understood, joy, spontaneity, pleasure.

This new agreement is followed by everyone. Even the cats.