Registration. Once you register for the course, you will receive a welcome package including all the information you need before the course begins, some reflection questions to help you (and us) assess where you are at, and a self-connection pack with resources to help you to start a self connection routine straight away.

 

Week 1: Exploring your vision. In the first week together, we will welcome you, settle in, and explore what you need in order to get the most out of the programme, explore your vision for your family and your specific goals and intentions for our time together. We will place you in a homegroup and you will have time to find your way around the programme. We will introduce Compassionate Communication (or Nonviolent Communication) as the primary model we will use throughout the course as a way to support and strengthen the caring, peaceful relationship we wish to create with our children.

 

Week 2: Connection. We will start off by exploring the importance of the relationship that we have with our children as a container for their growth and development, and the impact on them (and on us, via their ‘behaviour’) when there are challenges with the connection. We will examine what makes a child difficult (or easy) to parent, what is happening in their brain/nervous system during interpersonal challenges, and what is within our power to change. We will also look at systemic factors that impact the relationship context, including our own conditioning, trauma and socialisation and the impact of external factors. We will all meet for our first “Lunchtime Connection” live community coaching call (Fortnightly on Wednesdays, 12 noon).

 

Week 3: Two ways of being in the world. This week, we look at how our beliefs and judgments about the world create a lens through which we see, understand and interpret our child. We explore two very different ways of being in and experiencing the world (represented in Compassionate Communication by the Jackal and the Giraffe) which correspond to two fundamentally different ways that our brains and nervous systems operate. We will examine the impact on our relationship with our child from these two different modes of being. We will explore how an understanding of our deep human needs can support a different way of being with our child and look at ways we can support flexibility and choice about shifting into a giraffe/needs-based consciousness in relationship with our child.

 

Week 4: Feelings, self regulation and co-regulation. This week, we look at the ways that we are separated from awareness of our own inner life: the vital emotional and bodily feelings that are the way our bodies communicate with us. We examine the importance of these body signals in bringing information into consciousness about what is important to us and how we might use this information to express ourselves, to self-regulate when we are triggered and to support our children to regulate themselves when they are activated (“co-regulation”).

 

Week 5: Observations and appreciation. This week we will explore the importance of separating our observations of our child from our evaluations/interpretations. We will look at the role of evaluations in conflict and how clear observations can support a more peaceful, harmonious and productive way of being with each other. We also look at the power of expressing appreciation and gratitude for our children, and how this can offer a more nurturing and life giving approach compared to praise and rewards.

 

Week 6: Empathy for self and others. In this session, we look at what happens within us when our children are doing and saying things that we find upsetting. How do we understand and interpret their actions? How does our interpretation impact our responses to them? How does our response further feed into their behaviour, and impact the relationship between us? We will explore ways to shift from rage, frustration and anger to curiosity and openness. We will also look at the importance of empathy to children’s development and learn some skills for offering empathy and understanding to our children even in the most challenging moments.

 

Week 7: The power of clear requests and authentic self expression. Many of us find it very difficult to make genuine requests of our children, leaning instead into passivity and permissiveness, on the one hand, or demand, force and authoritarian commands on the other. In this session, we look at the power of requests as a way to offer our children an opportunity to enter into a relationship of cooperation, mutual care and generous giving from the heart with us. We uncover some of the blocks we have to make requests with our children, how we can get stuck in “demand energy” and the impact of this on our power to create a caring relationship context and having our needs met. We will practise making clear, doable requests that capture our deepest needs and longings and offer us a way to make concrete steps to bring more joy and fulfilment into our relationships.

 

Weeks 8 & 9: Going beyond a “no” - The life-changing power of dialogue. So often, a “no” (from ourselves or from our children) serves as a block to connection - an uncertain place where we disagree and we cannot seem to find a solution that works for us both. Over the next two weeks, we will look at how to enter confidently into the space of the “no”, to identify clearly what we need, and what our child needs, and to hold firmly to this “needs consciousness” as an anchor, allowing us to search together for a way forward. We will practise hearing our child deeply, even when we strongly disagree with their desired outcome, and expressing our needs in a way that is more likely to be heard. We will practice how to engage in a full dialogue with your child that holds everyone’s needs with care, without them also having to learn dialogue skills.

 

Week 10: The transformative power of needs-based routines, rituals and agreements. This week, we will look at how we can bring the power of Compassionate Communication to make transformative changes within our families (or any other group). We look at the cumulative power of bringing a needs consciousness into our agreements and routines, and how, overtime, these agreements, routines and rituals save energy, reduce conflict, and support peace, belonging and togetherness. We look at ways to move beyond individual moments of challenge and conflict by leveraging the power of requests to regularly meet more of everyone’s needs over time.

 

Week 11: Stepping into your future. In our final week together, we will make a clear plan for your family going forward - what do you need to do to take this learning deep into your life and to continue your journey? What support can you access? What routines, agreements and rituals need to be in place? You will have a chance to celebrate each other’s growth and make realistic, doable steps to continue to work towards your vision that you can take with you back into your family life.