Non-Violent Parenting

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

I've been thinking about this idea of non-violent parenting a lot lately. What exactly does it mean to be non-violent, as a parent or even as a person? Obviously, spanking is out. But where is the line? If we define violence as causing someone else pain, then what does that mean for us? How do we prevent ourselves from causing pain to our children or other family members; to other humans in our communities, or those without any ties to us; to non-human animals in our environments or across the globe from us; to the Earth herself?

And if we consider it violence to cause pain to any being - human or not - then what does that mean for our everyday lives? I guess what I'm really wondering is this: if we set ourselves the goal of causing no pain to anyone, anywhere, are we setting ourselves up for another kind of violence, namely violence towards ourselves? When I facilitate workshops and give talks to parents, usually moms, one thing always strikes me - how much pressure we put on ourselves to be perfect. When we talk about ways to be compassionate parents, or to lighten our load on the planet, the conversation gradually - inevitably - veers towards a kind of "True Confessions", where people feel compelled to share the ways in which they fail to achieve their ideals.

My goal is never to encourage people to beat themselves up for situations in which their behavior was not exactly what they would have liked it to be. We've all been there; no one is perfect. Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20, but in the heat of a moment we do not always react well. What I always say is that even noticing that our reaction wasn't perfect after the fact is progress, and the more we notice that, the "better" we will do next time. If we continue to question ourselves, to try to live more in accordance with our most deeply held ideals, one day we'll find that we're reacting with more patience, or more kindness, or more compassion. It's a process.

That isn't a free pass for bad behavior, but it is permission to be as patient, kind and compassionate with ourselves as we'd like to be with everyone else. For true non-violence isn't just how we treat others, but also trying to minimize the "internal violence of spirit".