Peaceful Parenting

It's nine o'clock on a school night and 12-year-old Jesse is absorbed in his favorite video game—until his mother comes into his bedroom and announces that it's bedtime..

Jesse: No, I don't want to go to bed!
Mom: But it's already past your bedtime, and you know you have to get your rest.
Jesse: But I'm not tired!
Mom: Well, you will be in the morning if you don't go to sleep soon.
Jesse: Shut up. Anyway, you can't make me go to sleep.

The conversation might go on this way until Mom, exhausted and angry, shouts something like, "I quit! Suit yourself!"

Sound familiar? It does to us. In our experiences leading parenting workshops in Nonviolent Communication—a way of communicating that facilitates honest, respectful, and compassionate connection between people—we've seen countless parents frustrated by the combative exchanges they have with their children. Their conflicts are especially intense around daily activities such as going to sleep, waking up, and completing homework. Indeed, many parents today find themselves engaged in what seems like a constant power struggle with their kids. As they engage in arguments like the one between Jesse and his mother, both sides stake out their territory and resist giving in to the other. Parents come away feeling worn out and irritated; children feel threatened and even more determined to resist their parents' demands.

Based on our years of observation, we believe the way through these conflicts lies in shifting the way parents use their power, from using power over kids to using power with them. In the example above, the mother's attempt to control her son, though well—intended, triggers resistance—as will any attempt by one person to control another, no matter the age or relationship. As Christopher Boehm demonstrates in his essay in this issue of Greater Good, humans have been genetically predisposed to resent and resist being dominated for at least seven million years. While we may temporarily submit, we often do so with anger or resentment that will surface later. And when parents try to manage and control their children, everyone pays a high price—especially in the loss of trust, goodwill, and willing cooperation among family members.

This does not mean that parents should give up their power and permit their children to do whatever they want, whenever they please. Instead, what matters is how parents use their power.

Parents who use their considerable power over children—by making demands and enforcing them with threats of punishment and promises of reward—often find themselves locked into bitter struggles. Fiercely protecting their autonomy, wary children test us to find out where they can get some power of their own. And, very early on, they take charge of two crucial realms of their lives: where and when they sleep; and what, where, and when they eat. Try as they might, parents can't make children eat, nor can they make them sleep. Their needs for power and autonomy are so strong that kids will sometimes deny themselves their basic needs for food and rest in order to assert control over their lives.