Giraffe Parenting - A Radical Approach to Raising our Kids?

So many people are talking about parenting. The amount of advice is overwhelming. If I were starting from scratch these days, I really don’t think I’d know which way to turn. 

Thankfully, my daughters are now ten and fourteen - ages that bring their own unique set of challenges - but at least they’re old enough to converse with.

And I gave up taking parenting advice many years ago!

I have, however, been noticing the explosion of parenting books, coaches and ‘experts’ in recent years. And there seems to be a common theme running through much of the advice that I’m really not comfortable with. 

A lot of it seems to me, in some form or another, a version of ‘How to get your kids to… [insert here what you will, e.g. listen / go to bed on time / be nice to their sibling / respect their elders / sit down / keep still / stay calm / be quiet / do the dishes / tidy their bedrooms etc] 

The underlying assumption being that children are in need of training, taming, pacifying…that if they don’t comply there is something wrong with them - or the parent.

But what if parenting wasn’t about trying to get children to do what the adults want them to do? 

What if, instead of spending our time and energy riding the emotional rollercoaster of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ parenting, we did less, trusted more and allowed our children to be…well, children?! 

This is a question I’ve been pondering for many years - and it’s one that’s become more solidified as my understanding of nonviolent communication (also known as NVC or compassionate communication) has grown - much like my children!

I’ll be honest: when I first sought out NVC training about eight years ago, my motive was to get my children to comply - with the least resistance possible - and ideally without any shouting on my part.

Back then, I believed that if what I wanted my daughters to do was ‘reasonable’ (and by reasonable, I mean whatever was necessary for them to do in order to enable whatever I ‘needed’ to do, e.g. go to work, go to the shops, go to bed etc.) then non-compliance was simply not an option. 

I’d fallen into the cycle of bribing, cajoling, pleading, nagging…and when none of that worked, I’d end up shouting. On some occasions I even resorted to throwing things or smacking - strategies that always left me feeling terribly ashamed and contrite. (For more on my parenting journey, read my blog: ‘Taming my Jackal’.)

So, my journey with NVC was born out of a desire to stay calm, communicate with compassion…and to get my children to do what I wanted them to do with minimal fuss.

Over the years, I’ve realised that this is not the ‘point’ of NVC at all. Whether communicating with a child or another adult, the underlying principle of NVC is one of acceptance and connection - rather than being a ‘nice’ way to persuade others to do what you want!

For those of you familiar with NVC, this may have been obvious from the outset, however, as a teacher, I’d undergone intensive initiation into the ‘children need to be taught to comply’ school of thought. 

Although, for much of my teaching career, I ran my classroom on the foundations of collective decision-making and positive rewards rather than criticising, blaming or punishment (which is sadly still all too common in classrooms around the world today) the underlying assumption was the same: children needed to do what the teacher wanted them to do - it was just how it was framed to them that was different.

What I’ve now come to believe is that children have as much right as adults to decide what they want to do and when. 

That, far from being ‘seen and not heard’, children’s voices are as (if not more?) important than the adult voices in this world. (Imagine if children ran the world - what a wonderful, joyful, playful world it would be?!)

For too long, children have been side-lined, talked down to, belittled, told not to interrupt, to wait, to be quiet, to respect their elders. 

And yet, much of the time, their elders don’t respect them.

Don’t get me wrong; I still fall into the ‘trap’ of trying to get my children to comply - my jackal has undergone intensive training for many years and it’s a hard habit to break. 

But, as my understanding has grown and we’ve embraced the giraffe approach in our family life, our relationships have become stronger, we’ve all become calmer and I’ve managed to let go of so much of the guilt and shame I used to carry about not being a ‘good enough’ mother.

What’s more, the girls are developing their own emotional literacy and communication skills in ways that are far beyond their years. 

You may be wondering if our daughters are feral; if our household is chaotic; if we’re always late; if our plans have a tendency to go out the window?!

Well, yes…but that was our lives before NVC too…only now we’re all so much happier for it!

If you'd like to learn more about what it means to be a 'giraffe parent' (and get in some practice ahead of the hectic festive season!) then join us for a weekend retreat in the beautiful Devon countryside on 24th-26th November. Find out more here!