NVC and children

“I want to understand what you really need” – nonviolent communication with children and teenagers.

“If we show our children how to care for themselves without hurting others, they will learn everything they need to live.”

This thought runs like a red thread through the non-violent communication with children and young people.

In everyday life, there are conflicts again and again. There is a great temptation for all those involved to feel attacked, to attack themselves, or to withdraw, to look for guilt in the other person. There is much talk in arguments, but as a rule little about what we ourselves and our counterpart really need at this moment.

The Giraffe Dream project developed by Frank and Gundi Gaschler is based on Nonviolent Communication (GfK) by Marshall Rosenberg.   This is addressed to any pre-school institution and is used in hundreds of kinder-gardens in Germany and Europe, making nonviolent communication an integral part of the educational system.

The attitude behind GfK can be reduced to the simple denominator: to treat other people the way you would like to be treated.

Rosenberg chooses the giraffe, the land animal with the largest heart, as a symbol of a language that is useful to life, and thus reflects a language from the heart to heart.

This lecture is about:

• To recognize language patterns that are not helpful in dealing with each other and to find alternatives,
• Listen sensitively and understand what the other person needs
• Recognize what I’m really about and sincerely seek contact
• Say clearly and concretely what you want and learn to deal with it if mine says “no” to you.