Editor's Note: In the daily lives of many ordinary families, sometimes there are traps in communications that husbands and wives, also parents and children easily fall into. Inappropriate communication methods will further lead to fierce quarrels and confrontations which negatively affect the harmony of the family and are not in favor of building a stable environment for children's development as a result. Then what should be done to achieve effective nonviolent communication in the family?
On the evening of December 28th, a married couple and founders of ELIM Health and Education Exhibition Center in Qingdao, Shandong Province, hosted an hour-long online workshop. Titled “Love Isn’t Torture - How to Develop a Stable and Harmonious Environment for Your Children to Grow Up”, the worship aimed to help recognize and solve violent communication problems within families.
First, Mr. James G.C. Shi, associate professor of marketing at Qingdao University and one of the founders of the center for children with autism, explained the definition of "violent communication". He said that in fact, "Violence" in family communication did not only refer to "physical violence" as commonly known, but also included "verbal violence".
Shi showed the four steps to achieve nonviolent communication as follows: tell the facts, express feelings, give reasons, and make requests.
Then, Shi and his wife Fang Jing together elaborated on the four steps with a case story about "how a wife should respond when her husband often gets drunk and returns home late".
According to some cases, the two teachers shared that firstly, when a person was unagitated, telling the facts calmly would make the at-fault party (e.g., the husband in the case) accept them more easily. Secondly, in terms of the other party’s wrongdoing, it was necessary to speak frankly about your own feelings about what happened (e.g., being drunk and returning home late). However, it should be noted that expressing feelings doesn’t mean judging the other party. Then one partner had to peacefully give the reason that was causing you to be sad and hurtful towards the other party in order to make them feel guilty and eliminate their psychological rebelliousness. The last step was to make requests or suggestions for the other party to improve gradually.
Shi explained that after mastering the application of the four steps above, the emotional confrontation or quarrels between husbands and wives caused by mundane chores would be greatly reduced. Therefore, love could be materialized through an expression of true feelings and reconciliation with one another.
Afterward, the couple discussed the root causes of "violent communication" in the family with the students present and the audience in the live broadcast room. Shi believed that "violent communication" often came from four aspects: moral judgments, making comparisons, avoiding responsibilities, and pushing the other party too hard.
In terms of moral judgments, the two said that "moral judgments" were actually commonly known as "should statements", that is, having a tendency to always comment on others by saying that they “should do this” and “should not do that”.
In order to abandon the behavior of "moral judgments", it was necessary to introduce the American philosopher Daniel Dennett's theory on the intentional stance. He believes that there are three stances one adopts when interpreting what’s happening, which are physical stance, design stance, and intentional stance. When adopting the intentional stance towards an entity, we attempt to predict and foretell its behavior. When our prediction doesn’t match the facts, we tend to bring a judgmental attitude towards the outside world, and then resort to disharmonious communication methods such as ordering and commanding.
Based on the above interpretation, thy showed that in family communication, each member needed to look at things from a physical stance and a design stance. For things that could be changed (such as living habits), we could try to achieve changes, and for those that could not be changed (such as personalities), we turned to embrace and accept them. We should try to avoid having an intentional stance and should not expect too much. "The road to hell is paved in expectations," concluded Shi.
Regarding making comparisons, Fang stated that in family life, the comparisons often happened between "family members and others" and between "family members and oneself". Developing a harmonious communication environment relied on leaving the mindset of “making comparisons”. Furthermore, getting rid of a comparative way of thinking would also help resolve disputes.
As to avoid responsibilities, Shi believes that when a person lacked "a sense of ownership", it was easy to have distorted thoughts of feeling threatened. The same applied in real life. When facing something that we had to do (such as doing domestic chores or going to work), we often lost interest and tried to escape from it, which in turn led to frictions and disputes in the family and the workplace. However, when feeling fully in control and willing to do something, we would not feel bored or be rebellious.
Hence, if we desired to overcome the negative mentality of running away from responsibilities, we needed to change our way of thinking and convert "I have to do this" into "I choose to do this". This would help develop a positive communication atmosphere in the family. Meanwhile, frictions and disputes would also occur less and less.
In the third part, the two lecturers focused on "how to achieve nonviolent communication".
First, we should learn to "observe" and "comment". Observing was more about telling facts objectively, whilst commenting involves judgments mixed with personal emotions. In family communication, we should pay attention when differentiating “observations” and “comments”.
The second step is to learn to "experience" and express our own feelings. In response to this theme, the two used their daily life as a married couple as an example. It showed that, in reality, husbands and wives in Chinese families were often very different in sharing and expressing feelings. Men were relatively introverted and not good at expressing their inner feelings proactively, while women were good at this but each had her own unique way. As a result, family members needed to acknowledge such differences, continue in trying to get along, be honest with each other, and finally lift the inner barriers.
Third, we should learn to speak honestly about the reasons for our own feelings. Then we should try to “listen” and understand the feelings and needs of others with our hearts.
At the end of the workshop, Shi briefly summarized the steps to achieve nonviolent communication into four short sentences: "I observe...", "I feel...", "Because...", and "I want..." Meanwhile, he also encouraged all participants that although the four steps were very simple, it was homework that every family member needed to practice throughout their life. He believed that love appeared when violence fell back.
- Translated by Shuya Wang
