As a parent I came to NVR when things were tough. At the time I don’t think I used the word crisis, but they were definitely tough times. I was trying to find a way through that would help my son and me, and create a calmer family home.
I was introduced to NVR by coincidence. My social worker had seen a flier for a one day course and asked me if I’d like to go. At the time NVR wasn’t that well known and she didn’t know much about it but we agreed it was worth trying. I was willing to try anything that might work, because the ‘traditional’ parenting approach I was using at the time definitely wasn’t working.
A went up to London for the one day course and very quickly realised I was being shown a way of parenting that made total sense to me. I could see how it would help my son and had the potential to significantly change our lives.
I came away feeling positive and believing I had a new toolbox that could work. I’ll be honest I didn’t remember everything I’d learnt from the day, but the notes were good and I was confident I could start using the approach. There was so much information to take in. Like many things, one day isn’t enough to learn all the aspects of NVR in depth and fully embed them in your brain, but it’s a start.
I made the decision to start small and not to try and do everything at once. Whilst I am a bit of an all or nothing girl, I knew I wouldn’t manage to make lots of different changes to the way I was parenting in one go so I picked one bit and started there.
Changes started to happen. Little glimmers of hope and that kept me going. As I felt more confident I started adding in more and more of the approach and the changes kept coming. 9 months after that one day course I started the NVR Practitioners training and after that first week the violence stopped completely. I’m not sure if that was coincidence or not, but to be honest I don’t mind either way.
3.5 years later and we are still good. Teenage hormones are kicking in and that presents a different set of challenges but I have a gorgeous boy whose kind caring heart is winning out. His confidence is growing and I love him to bits.
Our journey with NVR as a family has taught me a lot and I’m passionate about sharing it with others. One of the things I realised is that I was fortunate to find NVR early on in our lives together. It was easier for me to make the changes I needed to and see results. That in itself makes it easier to carry on.
Over the last few years I’ve become increasingly passionate about teaching NVR to parents before they get to crisis point. In some cases I’ve worked with adoptive families right at the start of their journey as a family, in the hope that we can avoid them reaching crisis point. Whilst we will have to wait for a longer term view of how successful that will be, at the moment it is definitely helping families.
NVR isn’t just for families in crisis. Why wait until then to start using an approach that is based on relationships and works in all situations? Yes, it is known for working well with challenging behaviour but it is about connection and when we focus on that we can create a more harmonious home.
If you’re told not to use NVR because you’re not in crisis, please believe me when I say, that is not the case. The earlier you start using it the easier it is.
If you would like to find out more come and join my free facebook group where I share tips and ideas every day. Anyone is welcome to join the group, whether you are new to NVR or not.
Www.facebook.com/groups/connectiveparentingusingnvr
