428. Nonviolent Communication in parenthood: A communication framework that can transform the way you parent with Oren Jay Sofer

Oren Jay Sofer (00:00):

One of the really liberating aspects of the nonviolent communication practice and the way that my meditation and mindfulness practice has dovetailed with it is the space it creates inside us in learning how to tolerate unmet needs. The more we are able to tolerate the discomfort of unmet needs, our own and others, the more freedom we have.

Dr. Sarah Bren (00:34):

So much of parenting advice focuses on finding the right words to say, but what if the quality of our communication has less to do with the words themselves and so much more to do with where we’re coming from? Hi, I’m Dr. Sarah Bren, clinical psychologist, mom of two, and the host of Securely Attached. In this podcast, I’m joined each week by leaders in the field of medicine, psychology, psychiatry and child development. And together we translate the science and research into easy to understand and actionable parenting insights. And today I’m joined by Oren Jay Sofer. Oren is a meditation teacher, certified trainer of nonviolent communication and the author of several books, including Say What You Mean. For more than two decades, he has helped people cultivate more mindful, authentic and compassionate ways of communicating by integrating mindfulness with the principles of nonviolent communication. In this conversation, Oren explains why nonviolent communication is much more than a communication technique.

(01:35):

It is a framework for understanding ourselves, our relationships and the needs that drive all of human behavior. We explore why our children’s challenging behavior often points to unmet needs rather than defiance. We talk about why our own unmet needs play a much bigger role in parenting than many of us realize and how shifting our intention can completely change the way our children experience us and what we have to say to them. We also talk about why memorizing parenting scripts often fall short and how mindfulness helps us stay connected to our values during the hardest parts of the parenting moments. And we talk about practical ways to set firm boundaries without relying on shame or punishment. And finally, we discuss and share simple shifts that can help children become more cooperative while strengthening your relationship at the same time. So if you’ve ever wished you could stay calmer during conflict, communicate in a way that builds connection, or better understand what’s happening beneath your child’s behavior, I think you’re going to find this conversation incredibly thoughtful and practical.

(02:50):

Hello, Oren, welcome to the Securely Attached Podcast. I’m so grateful that you are here today.

Oren Jay Sofer (02:56):

Thanks, Sarah. Yeah, I’m happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Sarah Bren (02:59):

Yes. So you have spent a lot of years teaching mindfulness and nonviolent communication, which is an approach that was developed by Marshall Rosenberg. And I was hoping we could maybe start out just for listeners who are maybe unfamiliar with nonviolent communication, what is this work and why were you drawn to it and how have you kind of like furthered it in the work that you do?

Oren Jay Sofer (03:30):

Sure. Yeah. Great place to start. So I came to nonviolent communication actually through the door of meditation. I found meditation as a teenager and got really taken with the process of understanding my own mind and learning more about some of the root causes of the violence and inequity we see in our world in terms of how consciousness functions. And after about five or six years of meditating very intensively, I saw a gap between what I was cultivating in my meditation practice and what I was able to manifest in my conversations and relationships. And so that was when I came across the work of Marshall Rosenberg and his particular training offered a bridge between all of these values I felt very deeply in meditation of compassion and clarity and generosity and patience. And then I would get into these arguments with the cooks in the kitchen I was working with over how long to steam the broccoli or forget about talking to my family and just kind of lose it immediately.

(04:45):

And so the training gave me a very practical hands-on aproach to stay connected to my values. And what I found very quickly was that the two started to really support each other was that one, I was able to take in a lot of the concepts and practices much more quickly because I already had some awareness of my body and my thoughts and my emotions. But what was interesting was it also went in the other direction that starting to learn more about how my thought patterns and my conversations were unfolding helped me to understand myself more clearly. So what is nonviolent communication? It’s much deeper than a communication technique. And this is one of the reasons why I’ve devoted the last 20 years of my life to learning and teaching it. It’s really a practice of awareness and understanding ourselves, understanding our relationships and how we relate to the world.

(05:51):

And it uses language, how we think, how we speak, how we listen as the terrain, as the doorway for understanding ourselves and our relationships. And it’s a way of Marshall Rosenberg grew up in Detroit during the first wave of uprisings in the ’40s. He was Jewish. He experienced violence and antisemitism for his religion growing up and saw a lot of the racial violence happening around him. And he was very interested in understanding why some human beings resort to violence when their needs aren’t met and other human beings are able to stay connected to the sense of shared humanity and compassion. And what he found was that it has to do with how we think and perceive ourselves and one another. And that when we’re able to focus our attention on specific aspects of our experience, it’s easier to see shared humanity across differences, to work together to find creative solutions. And so the heart of nonviolent communication comes out of humanistic psychology. I’m aware I’m talking a blue stream right now.

Dr. Sarah Bren (07:02):

No, please keep going. And it’s helpful because I think, and you’re going to talk more about this. I already sense where you’re going. And I love that the way you’re describing this, first of all, I should say, we have a lot of therapists that listen to this podcast and we have a lot of parents that listen to this podcast. And so I’m already following this in part from my psychologist ear and in part from my mom ear. And I’m like, “Oh, I have so many questions for you about the mom part. I could see this so valuable for like…

Oren Jay Sofer (07:36):

That’s the juicy stuff.

Dr. Sarah Bren (07:37):

I know.

Oren Jay Sofer (07:38):

Let’s get there.

Dr. Sarah Bren (07:39):

But go first because you were going to talk a little bit about humanistic psychology and I know where you’re going to go with this. And I think it’s a really good foundation for everyone to understand where this comes from.

Oren Jay Sofer (07:50):

Right. So Marshall Rosenberg studied with Carl Rogers, who is one of the founders of humanistic psychology along with Abraham Maslow. And the core of it is this understanding of human needs, that part of what makes us human is that we all share the same fundamental underlying universal needs. And these go beyond our basic needs for food, water, shelter, medicine, to relational needs like belonging and play and humor and touch and understanding to higher needs like meaning, beauty, purpose, dignity, respect. And the understanding is that all human behavior and action can be seen or understood as an attempt to meet some underlying universal need. It might not be successful.

(08:46):

It might not be wise. It might not even be conscious. But because we are feeling logical creatures underneath any behavior action, we see that we’re reaching towards some positive value, some need that we all have that we can recognize. And that word need carries a lot of different connotations and associations. So it’s always important to acknowledge we don’t mean being needy, being dependent, demanding or selfish. We’re talking about these basic fundamental motivating categories of human experience, some of which I mentioned before. And so this gives us a bridge to understand one another, to work together. And then when it comes to parenting, to actually have a method to understand our own reactivity, impatience, frustration, helplessness, as well as our children’s behavior when they’re acting out or seem to be pushing our buttons instead of pathologizing it to be able to step back and consider what we all hear about and many of us want to believe this child needs help.

(10:01):

Why are they doing that? So what do they need right now? What is the need here? And even when we don’t know the need and this is what I love about this practice and why it’s been so transformative in my life, is just remembering that question. Just remembering to even consider this person or this child has some need helps transform how we’re relating and how we’re showing up.

Dr. Sarah Bren (10:27):

Yes. Yes. Because like you said, we know that intellectually, but in the moment it’s hard because… And I think why one of the reasons it can feel particularly hard in the moment is if our kids flooded by an unmet need and that’s translating into some sort of frustrating behavior, dysregulated behavior. And that is contagious because then that usually is thwarting some need of ours. And then we’re being reactive to our own unmet need, not actually the kid’s behavior, but the way the kid’s behavior thwarts a need of our own perhaps. And now we’re in this dance of like no one’s needs are being met and we’re just kind of like increasingly kind of ping ponging this dysregulation back and forth. And I think we get so fixated as parents that the answer somehow isn’t changing our kids’ behavior when really it’s not even getting to know what our kid’s need is. That’s the second step. But first it’s to go into ourself and say, oh, I have an unmet need. That’s why I’m reacting to this in this way.

Oren Jay Sofer (11:45):

Yeah. Yeah. Well said. There’s like a few different things popping for me that I want to pick up on. Sarah, one is that one of the really liberating aspects of the nonviolent communication practice and the way that my meditation and mindfulness practice has dovetailed with it is the space it creates inside us in learning how to tolerate unmet needs. The more we are able to tolerate the discomfort of unmet needs, our own and others, the more freedom we have. The more flexibility, the more agency we have. And as we all know, life includes not having our needs met sometimes. And even in the best of circumstances and conditions, that’s just what it means to be alive. And so how do we hold it and how do we relate? And how do we be tender with the wounds that get stimulated from our own history of an unmet need and not let those interfere with the moment? It’s said that every stage of a child’s life, like we’re as parents, reliving whatever was going on for us at that stage.

(13:18):

So how do we not let that spill over into our kids’ life? And how do we handle our reaction to the pain of our child’s unmet needs? Whether it is the desire to rush in and take the pain away or to recoil from it or to judge them. I see this with, we have a two year old, almost two and almost four year old right now. And with our four year old, one of the things that I struggle with in myself is when his needs aren’t met and I want him to have perspective on like, dude, you have so much that so many human beings on this planet do not have.

(14:08):

And how to hold that. So that’s the first thing. The second thing, and you pointed to this when you said it’s not just about identifying their own unmet need, but also being aware of what’s happening in us. The other thing that I hold, that I try to hold in my awareness with my kids and maybe it’s fifty fifty that I’m able to do this is something that one of my dear friends and late mentors in nonviolent communication taught me a teacher by the name of Inbal Kashtan who was a huge proponent of nonviolent communication and parenting and held it as a form of social change.

(14:51):

Because she recognized that the parent child relationship is the primary site of socialization and the primary context in which domination systems and oppression and power over get learned and passed on. So she saw parenting as a tool for social change. And she pointed out that every interaction with our children, they’re learning something about what it means to be human and what it means to be in this world. What lessons are we teaching them? Are we giving them the skills to navigate difference and make peace? Or are we teaching them that the person with more power wins?

(15:41):

And that’s a frame I try to hold in my own mind and particularly around using power over my kids and to know that I am going to use power over them sometimes. Am I doing it consciously or reactively? Am I doing it with love and clarity in my heart or am I doing it with frustration and punishment in my heart? And the difference in the experience both of my child and myself when I’m able to exert power from a place of groundedness and conscious choice and really communicate that decision and why I’m doing it rather than just whatever it is picking the kid up and moving their body because I can’t take it anymore.

Dr. Sarah Bren (16:27):

Yeah. Yes. There’s a lot of talk in on violent communication about intention and how like communication is not just what the words are, but what all of this sort of nonverbal cues also convey. And if the intention, help me clarify if I’m getting this right, but my understanding is if my intention, my felt internal experience of why I’m doing what I’m doing and my aim and my goal is from a place of I need you to do what I want you to do. I need you to turn this feeling off inside of me. I need you to make this unmet need of mine feel met. Then even if the communication is exactly verbally word for word the same, it’s going to feel different if the intention is I want to care for you. I want to understand you. I want to help you feel safe.

(17:41):

I want to understand your needs or whatever the different intentions. There’s not that one’s bad and one’s good and there can be lots of different intentions, but that the person feels what the intention is, not what the words are. You could probably be more eloquent about that. Can you explain that context?

Oren Jay Sofer (17:58):

Yeah. No, 100%. Again, there’s so much in what you said. There’s like four different pathways from here.

Dr. Sarah Bren (18:05):

I get that a lot.

Oren Jay Sofer (18:07):

Yeah.

Dr. Sarah Bren (18:07):

Sometimes I ask too many questions in one question.

Oren Jay Sofer (18:11):

Well, it’s just because it’s such rich material and there’s so much room for growth and learning for all of us in this domain. It’s one of the things that I am daily both humbled by and love about being a parent is that it really tests me and I get to grow and learn at a remarkably faster rate than I would if I weren’t trying to parent consciously or not even being a parent. So intention is important. It’s one of the core factors that I teach in my mindful communication model, which integrates mindfulness and nonviolent communication. And Marshall Rosenberg pointed to this by highlighting two questions. And he said, anytime you want someone to change their behavior, whether it’s adult or a child, especially if it’s a child, don’t just ask yourself what it is you want them to do. Most of us can get there.

(19:14):

Although with kids, sometimes it’s even harder because we’re just focused on what we don’t want them to do. And I want to get there too, because that’s a really important training and nonviolent communication. Not just what do you want them to do, but why? What do you want their reasons to be for doing it? And if we only ask the first question, what do I want you to do? We will often default to more habitual tendencies and patterns, including blame, shame, judgment, obligation, coercion, power over to get our way. But if we ask ourselves that second question, what do I want this person’s reasons to be for doing this? It’s very rare that we ever want someone to do something out of fear or obligation. We want them to do it because they understand its benefit and importance or because they care about us or care about something.

(20:10):

So I think that really gets to the heart of this question around intention. And we can define intention in different ways. And so I wanted to maybe build on what you’re saying and separate the goal or outcome that we want from our intention, which I define as where we’re coming from inside or how we’re showing up. It’s the heart quality behind our words or actions. So the intention to connect, to be patient, to be curious, to offer support versus the intention to be efficient, get things done, relieve my anxiety, have more order. So being aware of that driving force in our heart is what’s going to determine not just what we say or do, but as you’re pointing to how we say it, what the body language, the tone of voice, how all of that picks up. And I get this feedback from my son who’s almost four all the time.

(21:19):

He’s such an exquisitely sensitive human that just even the slightest irritation or anger in my voice, he feels it and he says, “Aba used harsh voice.” And will start to cry or get upset because he can feel the tone. He can feel the energy. It’s not about the volume. It’s about where it’s coming from. And this is Marshall Rosenberg used to say this all the time. And this is what I love about this practice and what I say when I teach all the time is skillful communication is not about what we say. It’s not about the words. It’s about where we’re coming from inside and the quality of connection and understanding that we’re able to create.

Dr. Sarah Bren (22:08):

Yes. Okay. This is so helpful because I think there are so many parents that feel really stressed and almost like beholden to memorize a billion different scripts for a billion different scenarios and that there’s one right way to say it. And even the idea of like, “Oh, I’m learning this communication strategy, nonviolent communication. There are scripts. There’s the right thing to say.” And I think you’re speaking about something that I really resonate with, which is trying to give parents tools that are frameworks rather than cookie cutter, do this thing, memorize this. Because I want parents to feel like this sort of grounded sense of agency and trust in themselves that like, “Oh, if I understand the why and the how, I don’t need to memorize a million, what do I say?” And so I’m wondering just along that lines, if a parent is listening, this sounds very appealing to me. I’m resonating with the fact that I want that to be my intention. The idea of coming from a place of curiosity and connection and love is my goal. But then somewhere along the lines. It gets interrupted with a lot of frustration and urgency because life. How do I stay connected to my intention when things are really hairy and crazy and my kid is doing a lot of stuff and I’m like, it’s overwhelming in the moment.

Oren Jay Sofer (23:51):

Yeah. Well, there’s a few things that help me. The first and most essential is having some method to come back to presence. And this is why in the mindful communication training I do, the first foundation of training is presence, is learn how to lead with presence. It means we just have to show up. We have to actually be here because if we’re not here, we’re acting out our habits and we’re on automatic.

Dr. Sarah Bren (24:21):

Can you define presence for people who are like, this is new to me.

Oren Jay Sofer (24:26):

Yeah. Presence means being aware and connected to yourself and your surroundings. It’s a natural state. It’s not a special thing. All mammals are naturally present in their environment. We are oriented when we’re not under threat. When we’re not under threat, we are curious and connected creatures. We’re aware of ourselves, our bodies and our environment. When something moves or there’s a sound in our environment, we turn to see it. What’s that over there? Come to a new place, we explore. So presence means being naturally connected and aware of ourselves in our environment. And of course, there’s so much about our lives and our world today that takes us away from presence. The pace of things, the sheer volume of demands on our time and attention, technology.

(25:23):

And so we lose touch with our natural presence. And so we need some way of learning to recognize when we’ve lost presence and a method or technique to return to that natural state. So we’re not trying to produce something, but we’re trying to just remembering. I was like, “Oh, whoa, I’ve been gone for a while looking at my email or scrolling or planning what’s going to happen this weekend or.” The mind just kind of goes everywhere. So this is where mindfulness comes in is being able to just take a breath. And it’s trite and it’s cliched, but it actually works because our breathing is connected to our nervous system. And when we breathe consciously, we down regulate our nervous system and we start to move back into a state of being more connected and oriented. So when my son is whining and there’s already been half an hour of some screaming and crying in the morning because he didn’t get a good night’s sleep and it’s Monday, so he’s anxious about going to school.

(26:30):

And I’m like, “Well, you’ll just put your shoes on. ” It’s like, okay, can I take a breath? Can I notice that frustration and activation rising inside me and know this is going to make things worse for both of us? And so this is where the presence is being able to like, “Okay, let me just slow down here and take a breath.” And then it goes a step further of actually then being able to model that. And this is one of the things my wife and I are doing a lot with our kids and she’s a meditator and is nonviolent communication training too. So we make a good team in that of being able to both individually and together relationally to model self-regulation tools and co-regulation tools. So I might say aloud like, “I’m noticing I’m starting to feel really frustrated and angry. So I’m going to just take a breath or two and take a deep breath. Okay. I can feel some of that relaxing inside. I think I’m ready to ask you again. I’m going to take you by your hand. Will you come sit down so we can put on your socks and shoes?

(27:36):

Mama needs to get to work.” Or my wife will say to me, “Aba, I noticed your voice is starting to get a little bit louder. Are you feeling frustrated? Do you need to take a break?” And instead of hearing that as a judgment, I know we’re on the same team and it’s like, “Thanks, mama. Yeah. I’m going to go into the living room for a minute and just take a few breaths or do a few pushups or I’m going to go to the calm down corner and look at the feelings chart and like, yep, I’m feeling this way. I’m feeling this way.” So we’re models seeing us normalize. It’s okay to feel frustrated. It’s okay to have an unmet need. It’s okay to feel like I’m going to lose it and here’s how I handle that. And then when we don’t to be able to repair.

Dr. Sarah Bren (28:15):

Yeah. I think that’s so helpful to just get a peek inside what the home of two non-mile communication meditation trainers do with their kids. And I think that…

Oren Jay Sofer (28:29):

On a better day.

Dr. Sarah Bren (28:30):

On a good day. But even on a tough day that sometimes you say, “Oh, I’m going to just put your shoes on. ” But it’s the catching. It’s not the never doing it. It’s like I lose it with my kids all the time. I am good at that. Yeah. I am also good because I’ve had a lot of practice and put a lot of work into the intentionality of what I am very good at losing with my kids. I am also very good at recognizing when I’ve lost it and coming back to baseline and then repairing that and kind of reconnecting. I think it’s important to name that like that is fine.

Oren Jay Sofer (29:14):

Yeah. And not only fine, it’s healthy.

Dr. Sarah Bren (29:16):

Not losing it in the first place because human beings, this is one of the big takeaways I got from reading about nonviolent communication that I was like, “This is phenomenal.” It is really, really, really not just okay. It’s a key component to know that you have needs. It shouldn’t be, but it is a bit revolutionary or it’s not revolutionary, but…

Oren Jay Sofer (29:48):

It’s a revelation to most of us because we weren’t taught that.

Dr. Sarah Bren (29:51):

It’s also like it’s disruptive in the sense that it’s disruptive to a lot of these unconscious, implicit norms Yeah. We have been conditioned to just accept and perpetuate. You are not allowed to have needs. Needs are selfish. That’s not nice. You’re taking up too much space. Your needs are weak. Needs are assigned.

Oren Jay Sofer (30:21):

Or you’re the reason I feel this way. It’s your fault I feel this way. You did this to me. You’re making me feel this way versus I don’t like that because I really value this. That doesn’t work for me because I really need this. I don’t like that because in our family we try to use gentle words with one another. I don’t like it when you shout at your sister because I want everyone to be treated with respect. We link the feeling and the behavior back to the need and this is one of the key insights Marshall had and that comes out of nonviolent communication is that the needs free us from that entanglement and codependence and blame to be able to take responsibility for our experience and say, yeah, that doesn’t work for me and here’s why. Because I value this, because this is important to me.

Dr. Sarah Bren (31:16):

I want to take a quick pause here because one of the things I appreciate most about this conversation is that it reminds us that most parents already know the kind of parent they want to be. We want to be patient. We want to stay calm. We want to respond with empathy instead of frustration. But when we are exhausted, overwhelmed, or juggling a hundred different demands, it’s easy to fall back on old habits that don’t reflect our values. If that feels familiar, you are not alone and you don’t have to figure it out all on your own. At my group practice, Upshur Bren Psychology Group, we help parents bridge the gap between knowing what they want to do and actually being able to do it in the moment. Through therapy and parent coaching, we can help you better understand both your child’s behavior and your own reactions so you can respond with more confidence, intention and connection even during the hardest parenting moments.

(32:12):

Whether you’re navigating frequent power struggles, anxiety, emotional outbursts, neurodivergence, or simply wanting to feel more grounded in your parenting with your child, our team is here to help. With both in – person services in Westchester, New York and virtual sessions worldwide, we make it convenient to get support wherever you are. If you’d like to learn more, you can schedule a free 30 minute consultation by clicking the link in the episode description or visiting upshurbrend.com. That’s U-P-S-H-U-R-B-R-E-N.com. Okay. Now let’s get back to my conversation with Oren Jay Sofer.

Oren Jay Sofer (32:54):

I want to come back to something else you said around a script and more sort of like principle based learning. And this is one of the things that I also just repeatedly emphasize when I teach communication, whether it’s my own online trainings or one of the retreats I do or the eight month immersion I do is that this template that Marshall Rosenberg came up with and the four components just to mention them, because I alluded to them before, but then only mention needs are one is observations. So what’s actually happening in our environment that we want to discuss? Not our judgments and interpretations about it, not your being a brat, but I noticed that you’re still tapping your fork on the table when mama asked you if you could put your fork down.What is the actual observation? The feelings? How do we feel? What emotions are moving through us?

(33:54):

The needs, which are a reflection of our feelings. Our feelings point to our needs. The key understanding here is that when our needs are met, we feel pleasant emotions. When our needs are not met, we feel unpleasant emotions. So the emotions become a signal that point us back to our needs. And then the last piece, which I want to talk about is a request, which is an idea, a suggestion, a proposal for how are we going to deal with this? What do we want to do now? Let’s move forward. Let’s figure this out. And that’s often the most transformative but also a difficult part of the model is to actually get concrete. So many people learn nonviolent communication as a script and this is why it fails so miserably and why so many people have had negative experiences with it because it feels robotic. It removes our sense of authenticity. It can come across as patronizing or controlling because it doesn’t honor people’s autonomy and cultural differences. So that model is not a script. It is a template for awareness and for investigation. It’s pointing us to say, look at this, be aware of these components and then be real, be human, talk about what’s going on, but rooted in these particular aspects of what’s actually happening because this is the data that we actually need to understand one another and what’s important to us.

(35:17):

So I’ll stop there, but I want to get back to requests and will you please stop tapping your fork on the table? Will you please stop whining?

Dr. Sarah Bren (35:24):

Yeah. Well, I think that that’s very important to just highlight one thing you said that I think is for me going to be like a big takeaway of this conversation, which is when we say the things without understanding not just why one says it, but why we might be saying it in this moment and how we want this person in this moment in real life to feel and receive it. It doesn’t land. And even when you were describing the way that you and your wife talk with your kids, I love the way you talk with your kids. And I strive to talk that way too. And for a lot of people listening, that might be very far from the way that they naturally, authentically, organically communicate. And I think part of what that might be a sign is we have to investigate where some of the language we tend to just default to is coming from, but also this real permission to talk the way you talk.

Oren Jay Sofer (36:27):

Yeah.

Dr. Sarah Bren (36:27):

100%. Be authentic because I think the authenticity is really important and that’s what gets lost when we recite a script. When we understand the components and then try to authentically get there with the person in front of us, the way we really relate to and communicate to that person, it becomes very real and it becomes a dialogue, not a strategy.

Oren Jay Sofer (36:55):

Yeah. Yeah. Marshall Rosenberg pointed to this a lot and what he said really stays in my mind where he encouraged us to not mistake what is habitual for what’s natural. And I think a lot of the times when we say, “Well, this just feels inauthentic.This just doesn’t feel what we might be experiencing is that this is unfamiliar. It’s unfamiliar for me to think or speak in this way, but it’s actually closer to our nature. So what do I mean by that? One of you talked about this practice is disruptive and that it invites us to question a lot of the things we’ve internalized. Well, one of the core ways of perceiving and being most of us internalize is to project our unmet needs outward as blame and judgment. If you’re doing something that I don’t like, you’re an idiot, you’re out to lunch, you’re annoying, you’re selfish.

(38:07):

What isn’t working for me becomes about you. If we think about it, when a baby is hungry or tired or in pain, they don’t blame. They don’t say bad mama, bad daddy. It’s just ouch. It’s just ouch. It’s just, I’m hungry. I’m tired. They can’t communicate, but they can cry. It’s just like, this is not working. Something’s off. We have to be taught to blame this is your fault to actually disconnect from what’s happening for us and say, you’re the reason versus just being aware of the need and the unmet need. And so I lost my train of though where you left off. Oh, what’s natural from what’s habitual. So it is unfamiliar to talk about our feelings and needs, but it’s very natural. And often when we actually begin to identify how we feel and what we need, it’s more authentic because we’re actually more connected to ourself.

(39:16):

So is it more authentic for me to say, I want to smack you because you’re being an obnoxious brat, which is certainly a thought that I’ve had about my toddler more than once. Or is it more authentic to say, I am feeling so enraged right now because I want a little bit more understanding and cooperation for how hard I am working to support you and to keep from losing my shit. Like that’s what’s actually going on when I look carefully, right? Is there’s feelings pointing to unmet needs, but it gets translated into this, you are being an obnoxious little brat. Is he?

(40:08):

Well, yeah, maybe we could say according to some people we would describe the behavior in that way. But what’s actually happening is like there’s some needs of mine that aren’t being met because these behaviors don’t align with my values or because I’m wanting something else. So it’s about really questioning our own thoughts and perceptions. And this is why it’s not really a communication technique. It’s a practice of transforming our consciousness and why it’s not a one and done. It’s not a weekend workshop. It’s not a reading a book. It’s a path. It’s something that if we’re interested in using our lifetime to really grow and to make a difference in this world, it means continuing to investigate and practice and change. And I’ve seen it in myself. I’ve seen it in thousands of people that I’ve trained and taught. It’s totally possible, but it’s slow. It’s incremental. It’s a little bit at a time. And we want quick change. We want to see it happen right away.

Dr. Sarah Bren (41:13):

And that’s more of that conditioning.

Oren Jay Sofer (41:14):

Right. There’s something else you said I want to pick up on and then I want to toss it back to you when we’re talking about scripts and not using things as a script. The other thing about that, that I have found really helpful both in parenting and in my nonviolent communication training is that it is also helpful to hear other people doing it. Because it’s not about fitting ourselves into a mold, but the way we learn language is by listening. And the way we learn to change our language and to change our parenting is by seeing or hearing someone else do it differently. By actually seeing that other parent at the daycare be able to turn to their kid and say, “Oh, you just bit me. I’m wondering if you’re wanting some attention and you’re wanting to play right now. I didn’t like that, but I’m happy to play with you.” Being able to see it modeled and to hear someone else doing it differently than we internalize and go, “Oh my gosh, didn’t know you could do that. I’m going to move that. “

Dr. Sarah Bren (42:20):

Yeah. Yes. And like those are, I think the difference between repeating the same thing because you’ve memorized a script versus you’ve internalized the intention and the strategy, like the skill are slightly different. They could look the same, but the essence is quite different. And I think modeling is how almost all communication gets learned. The helpful and the not so helpful.

Oren Jay Sofer (42:49):

Exactly.

Dr. Sarah Bren (42:51):

There was one other thing you said though that I thought, oh, that’s so important. Oh, when you were talking about if you are like really investigating this moment of like you’re a spoiled brat and I’m blaming you for this, but if I can come down internally and say, “Oh, I’m actually really needing cooperation and appreciation for how much work I’ve been doing.” And in nonviolent communication with an adult to an adult, that could probably be just explicitly said and it would be more likely to get your needs met. And I’m so curious how nonviolent communication gets translated into this asymmetrical relationship of parent-child because yes, it is important I believe that a parent does have the skills and the language to not just know I’m needing this from you, but to be able to communicate it in a way that’s developmentally appropriate. But the expectation that your child is going to be able to meet that need is I think where the change in that asymmetrical quality of that relationship has to be realistically tempered. And I’m just curious how you would approach helping parents kind of grapple with the difference between using nonviolent communication with like your partner versus using it with your kid.

Oren Jay Sofer (44:18):

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s something that I’m actively test driving and learning, but I can share a few principles. For me, I think it touches on a really fundamental choice that each of us can make for ourselves around how radical we want our parenting to be. And for me, I want to build a world where there’s a commitment to finding nonviolent means to meet everyone’s needs, where everyone’s needs matter and where there’s a commitment to only using power over others when it’s the absolutely last resort to protect life. It’s not the world we live in, but that’s the world that I’d like to live in. And so what I see when I have more power as I do with my children, it can be a lot more efficient to use my power just to get my way. But I know that that is for better, for worse, indoctrinating them into this world of power over is not a last resort.

(46:00):

It’s how things work when I lose patience and I can. And there’s sadness, there’s mourning in my heart that I don’t have enough skill and resilience and patience or that I’m constantly building that for those number of instances to be less and less. So how do we deal with that asymmetry? So for me, I think that it’s a very kind of deep, ethical, even spiritual question for us around how do we hold that as parents and what is our relationship to our power? And how radical of a collaborative relationship are we willing to be in with our children? And of course, I’m not suggesting in any way that we abandon our responsibility for keeping our children safe or feeding them healthy food or helping them get enough rest. But it’s like I see it in little things every day where it’s like, okay, I want my daughter to get off the potty and come to the kitchen to have breakfast.

(47:13):

And she wants to read another book. And it’s like, how do I handle that? Do I pick her up and take her off the potty? At what point? And why? And how do I communicate that to her? Even though she can’t communicate back. And I try to embody and model like, “Oh, you really want to read another book, sweetie? I really want to go have breakfast. I’m hungry, but I’ve got that in me. I could do another book. Sure, let’s read another book. Let me read another book. Ma, ma, ma, right? Sweetie, I hear you really want to read another book. I was getting really hungry and I’m really starting to get tired of sitting on the bathroom floor. Okay. I need to get up now because it’s hurting my body and I’m hungry. Are you ready to get up? Ma. Okay. I’m sorry, sweetie. It’s not working for me or my body anymore. So I’m going to help you get up and we’re going to put your diaper on and go to the kitchen.

(48:09):

You ready? Here we go. I’m helping you get up. I’m modeling, I have needs too. And you have needs. I’m trying to engage with you. You’re still dogging for your need. That’s great, girl. Keep doing it. And because you’re not able to engage yet, I’m guiding the process as consciously as possible and honoring both needs and explaining why the choice is happening. Which is the same as when I’m saying to my toddler like, “Okay, buddy, it’s time to put your sleep sack on. We’re getting ready for bed. Are you going to come to the couch right now and put your sleep sack on? Do you need help to get there? I see you’re not moving to the couch. Okay. I’m going to help you. I’m going to take your hand. You coming? I’m going to pick you up now. You ready? I’m picking you up.” So the idea in non-blind communication, we talk about the protective use of force. And this is from one of my other mentors, Inval’s sister, Mickey Cashtan, talks about the protective use of force. Let’s see if I can get this right.

(49:16):

We use it with as much love as possible for the least amount of time possible. As little force as possible with as much love as possible for the least amount of time possible to meet all of the needs present to protect the safety and wellbeing of ourself and those around us. And so it’s a dance, it’s a practice, it’s a challenge and it’s a choice. And it’s hopefully a choice that we’re making consciously.

Dr. Sarah Bren (49:46):

And I would imagine too that a successful moving through those steps, like when you say, “Oh, you’re not putting your sleep sack on. You need my help. I’m going to do it. ” Or you don’t want to get off the potty, you want another book, but it’s time for us to go have breakfast. Here we go.

Oren Jay Sofer (50:04):

I’m going to jump in right there and just one of the things that I try to pay atention to is it’s time for breakfast. There’s no such thing. There’s no such thing.

Dr. Sarah Bren (50:14):

My needs are my turn to honor my needs.

Oren Jay Sofer (50:17):

Exactly.

Dr. Sarah Bren (50:18):

I’m hungry.

Oren Jay Sofer (50:19):

I want mama to get to work on time so she can help the kids at the hospital. It’s like…

Dr. Sarah Bren (50:22):

Ah, so not the external locus of control, but this relational – Exactly. Exactly. Which is disempowering.

Oren Jay Sofer (50:28):

Which is disempowering. This is what I should do. This is what I need to do. This is what I have to do. No, you don’t.

Dr. Sarah Bren (50:34):

That is a really helpful distinction that I have not been quite grasping because I will often sort of default to, “Hey, it’s time for them.”

Oren Jay Sofer (50:46):

It’s bedtime. And there’s wisdom in that. We don’t need to be rigid. Make the routine the boss. There’s wisdom to deferring to that, but where does the routine come from and how did we get there and was there buy-in?

Dr. Sarah Bren (51:00):

And whose needs are the routine serving?

Oren Jay Sofer (51:03):

Exactly. Exactly. Right.

Dr. Sarah Bren (51:05):

And probably both. Okay. Tell me if I could translate this better, but like, “Hey, I have a need for us to follow the routine because it helps me with the night. And also the routine helps you with the night because it helps you get the sleep you need so we’re going to follow the routine.”

Oren Jay Sofer (51:26):

Would that be better? Yeah, you’re definitely moving in the right direction. I’m aware we’re coming up to the end of our time unfortunately, but we want to separate the routine from the need. So the routine is the strategy. That’s the what. The needs are the why. So I don’t need to follow the routine, but I do need sleep and I do need everyone in the family to get sleep. I do need rest. And I do need some ease and predictability in my life so that every night we’re not renegotiating the bedtime routine. So I want to say, “Bud, bud, I really want us to follow the routine so we can all get some rest.” That’s the strategy and I’m linking it to the need.

Dr. Sarah Bren (52:08):

Right. But what I would imagine is in a successful iteration of this, that doesn’t always mean that the child’s like, “Okay.”

Oren Jay Sofer (52:17):

Exactly. Success is not in the outcome. And this is holding that broader view that every interaction is not about the outcome. It’s about what the child is learning from the interaction. And the successful interaction is one in which I feel good about the choices I’ve made and they’re in line with my values regardless of the outcome. I know I did the best I could. I made conscious choices and the rest isn’t up to me.

(52:43):

I want to come back to one more thing because it’s a really practical skill that I work on every day, which is the request piece of the model, which is ask for what you do want, not what you don’t want. And that gets really hard with kids, but I’ve seen dramatically how helpful it is. So I think we all probably struggle with whining. It’s this kind of universal behavior at certain ages and it drives me up a wall. I got smacked when I was a kid. If I whined, I learned very quickly not to, but I don’t smack my kids.

(53:15):

And so I’ve been working with my son when he’s whining different strategies and many of them are useful of like, “Oh, can’t hear you. Ready to connect when you use your normal voice.” I like that one. But the other day he was whining or he was making some sounds, some whining sound over and over and over. And I was like, “Bud,” I was like, “Hey, can you please want to say stop whining. Stop making that noise.” And it’s like, “Can you make a different sound? Can you try to make a different sound?” And then he did. And then he started repeating that sound, which started to get annoying. And then I would say, “Okay, now make a diferent sound. And now do a different one again. This is great.” And he was very willing to make more and more new creative sounds and it stopped being annoying. So it’s like instead of stop banging your fork on the table, can you please put your fork down? Can you put your hands on your lap? It’s like give them the specific instruction for what it is we want them to do. And sometimes it’s so hard to find, but when we can find that and then connect it back to the why, I need some peace so we can enjoy our meal, trying to focus on making your lunch, whatever it is. I’ve seen real changes in being able to do that with our kids.

Dr. Sarah Bren (54:28):

Yeah. I also think one little piece of why that was also so successful and why I always recommend this to parents whenever they have the bandwidth and it fits the situation is to stay in their zone of play.

(54:42):

Because most often, so often we’re talking about needs driving a lot of behaviors. Children’s need to play and to have this reciprocal attention is so powerful for them and so central to their waking life. The whining initially might have been a communication, I don’t feel good. I don’t want to be frustrated. I don’t like this feeling. But when you can go to, but make a different sound, and then he does, and now you’re like, oh now make a different sound. Oh, now make a different one. Can you do this one? Now you guys are playing and you’re shifting him out of that discomfort through play versus by trying to convince him out of it or direct him or dstract him out of it outside the zone of play. And I say nine times out of 10, if you can fit some sort of redirection or correction inside the zone of play, you are going to be so much more successful.

Oren Jay Sofer (55:40):

Totally. Yeah. Through play and through the co-regulation of the back and forth and the connection.

Dr. Sarah Bren (55:46):

Right. Because you were co-regulating him because you brought him from up a higher uncomfortable arousal down to a more comfortable give and take, but without having to name it.

Oren Jay Sofer (55:57):

And it was regulating for me too, because I was at the edge of my patience. And being able to make a concrete request gave me a feeling of agency and power to be like, “Can you please just try doing this instead?” And so being able to even make that request helped me to settle a little bit and feel less desperate to get away from that noise.

Dr. Sarah Bren (56:19):

Yes. This so interesting. I have a lot to think about. I’m going to be paying a lot of attention to how I talk to my kids today. So thank you for that.

Oren Jay Sofer (56:30):

Yeah, pleasure.

Dr. Sarah Bren (56:34):

Wow. Okay. If people want to learn more about this, they want to connect with your work, you have a ton of resources. Where can we connect them to? We’ll put a bunch of things in the show notes for people to…

Oren Jay Sofer (56:42):

Absolutely. I have a ton of free resources on my website, orenjaysofer.com, including guided meditations and handouts. So that’s a great place to start. I lead a weekly meditation group on Wednesdays. So folks interested in mindfulness and internal practice can check that out. And then I run a number of nonviolent communication trainings. I have an eight month immersion program, which is great for those who want to go deeper and really integrate these tools into their life. It starts every year in September. I do a four month on – demand online training with a live Q&A every month that’s on my website called Say What You Mean based on my book. And then other retreats and programs that can all be found on my website.

Dr. Sarah Bren (57:28):

That’s amazing. Well, I’m excited to keep following along as you start to translate all the work you’ve done in your professional life into the parenting sphere because you’ve got little kids and there’s going to be so many. I just feel like there’s a lot of… Maybe your next book one day when your kids are older will be on how to parent with this lens.

Oren Jay Sofer (57:51):

Thank you. In 10 years. But I actually have something to say about parenting.

Dr. Sarah Bren (57:56):

Well, thank you so much for your time and your wisdom. This was so nice to speak with you.

Oren Jay Sofer (58:01):

Thanks for the invitation. It was a pleasure to talk.

Dr. Sarah Bren (58:10):

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