Rewards and punishments are part of the language of violence, which needs external stimuli to get things done. The new man, the nonviolent man, is autonomous, the motivation for his action is intrinsic, he does not do what he does for fear of punishment, nor in eagerness to win a reward. He does what he does because he likes it, and in order to meet his needs and the needs of others around him, thus contributing positively to his family, institution, company or society in general.
The biblical text quoted above imparts this idea that God is not indebted to us for having done what it was our duty to do in the first place. Rosenberg often advises people not to do anything if not for the pure joy of doing it; it seems that this idea go against the Christian principle of doing something for someone, of placing oneself at the service of others, but this is not the case.
Everything we do is to be done because we freely choose and want to do it; in this way, no one feels indebted to us. We are not enslaved to anything or to anyone, not even to duty, nor do we enslave others to us, that is, people are not indebted to us for what we do for them because we are not doing it for them but for ourselves, because we like to contribute to the well-being of others.
Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of NVC, did not delve more deeply into many areas of philosophy that underlie his linguistic technique. The area of education, however, has been developed in two small books titled, “Teaching Children Compassionately” and “Raising Children Compassionately”. From these two books, we will show how children should be educated at home and in school following the NVC principles.
Convinced that NVC has the potential to create a new man and a new world, Rosenberg did not neglect the area of education. He insisted that this new language should not only be taught to the very young, but that it should be the philosophy of education both at home and in school. He himself helped to create the so-called giraffe schools where the teaching systems, as well as the relationships between students, students and teachers, and teachers and parents follow the NVC matrix.
The limitations of coercion and punishment
Human beings from very young have an unquestionable need to protect their autonomy and freedom. Naturally they resist doing what others want them to do, even if it is good for them, for the simple reason that it was not their free personal choice. It is true that we can always ask children to do this or that, but we must always make clear the difference between asking and giving an order.
Orders are coercive, because they are accompanied by fear, punishment, guilt and shame, and give no possibility of choice; requests, on the other hand, grant the possibility of choice in such a way that if the answer is a “No”, we still hear a “Yes” to the needs of the one who apparently answered negatively to our request, so we are not bothered by it.
Rosenberg is peremptory in saying you just have to ask yourself two questions to come to the conclusion that punishments or rewards as a motivator for a child’s, or for that matter anybody’s, behavior never work:
What do you want your child to do?
In answering this question, you might conclude that coercion and rewards seem to be a shortcut for getting a person to behave in the way you want. They might work in the short run for a while; but once the person understands that the rewards are addictive and manipulative, and that coercion denies freedom, then they wouldn't work anymore.
What do you want your child’s reasons to be for doing something?
Rosenberg guarantees that as soon as you ask this question you will realize that rewards and punishments don’t work. A behaviour that is enforced by punishment, motivated by fear, guilt, shame, obligation or a desire for a reward is a threat to the child’s need of autonomy, freedom and independence. In fact, extrinsic motivations have a high price to pay for both the one who imposes them and the one who complies.
We certainly prefer that our child’s or any person’s motivations for behaviour to be intrinsic, and not extrinsic, that is, enforced by punishments or enticed by rewards. For this to work we need to connect empathically with the person in a way that he knows that his feelings and needs matter equally to us as our own.
Through an empathic dialogue both our needs and the ones of the other person can be identified and known. Once this happens nature will find strategies for both needs to be met in a win-win approach. Empathy leads to gratuity, to doing things and giving from the heart with no need for rewards.
It is also the emphatic dialogue that transforms a demand into a request. Demands may be useful in the army but not in education as they don’t take into consideration the needs of the other, his autonomy and freedom of choice.
Physical punishment
In almost every country in the Western world it is already illegal to spank one’s own children and yet the vast majority of parents still believe in the value of corporal punishment, in the sense that to give it up is to give up enforcing the values that they want to instill in their children.
In other words, for many parents to give up punishment is to give up educating their children thus letting them do whatever they want. For this very reason, because the law forces them to give up punishment, and they do not understand how to educate otherwise, they end up by giving up both punishment and education, so that they become both permissive and condescending which is bad for the child, for themselves and for the society in general.
Punished by rewards
What is true for punishment and coercion is also true for rewards; the latter is just as coercive as the former to obtain a certain conduct from children. In both cases we are using power over someone, forcing them to behave as we want. Rewards also rob others of their freedom because these make them act for motives outside of themselves, an attack against their autonomy and freedom.
In his book, Punished by Rewards, Alfie Kohn says that we educate children, at home and in school, and manage the employees at work, in the same manner we train a dog, bribing them with incentives: “Do this and you’ll get that”. Extrinsic motivations, in the form of praises, money, prizes are ineffective and counterproductive because those who suffer them quickly realize the ultimate reason is the manipulation and control of their behaviours.
It is remarkable how often educators use and abuse the word motivation when what they really mean is obedient submission. Indeed, one of the fundamental myths in this area is that it is possible to motivate someone. Kohn advises educators to avoid seminar articles or workshops titled, “How to motivate your students”, as framing the question in this way means exposing oneself to the device and control mechanisms. However, if it has to do with an intrinsic motivation, it is irrelevant since no one can motivate someone else.
Motivated by guilt
Our doing, or our giving, must come from the heart, must be motivated from within, or be self-motivated. Besides rewards and punishments, such as coercion or incentive motivation that induces children to do this or that, many parents especially those who have stopped punishing and reprimanding their children have found another technique, in their own understanding of nonviolence, of instigating guilt in their children. After all, they did not leave the Karpman’s Bermuda triangle, they have only ceased being the persecutors to become the victims.
When a mother says to her son, “You hurt me and your dad when you don’t clean up your room, or when you don’t get good grades…”, as there are no victims without persecutors, in becoming a victim, the mother is accusing and blaming her son of persecuting her with his behaviour hoping that her son will feel enough guilt to push him to make amendments for what he has done wrong, thus completing the triangle and become his mother’s rescuer by undoing the behaviour that oppressed her.
Of course, the child’s actions are not the cause of the parents’ feelings, but rather what they say to themselves as a result of their child’s actions. The child who changes his behaviour, to please his parents, does so because he feels guilty and not because he positively wants to contribute to life – his, his parents’ and society’s in general. If the parents in expressing their feelings were made to follow their needs then it would no longer be coercive or violent nor would it instigate guilt in the child. NVC in action could be, “Mommy feels frustrated when you don’t eat everything on your plate because I want you to grow up strong and healthy.”
Creating ties
The solution between preserving the child’s autonomy and our desire to instill our values through education, is a paradigm shift and the ultimate goal. What we want is to create ties that permit everyone’s needs to be met. The ties of mutual respect, where the needs of both, the educators and the learners, are equally important and interdependent.
In this new paradigm of education, we apply to children the same principles we use with adults. We give up any and all evaluations in terms of right or wrong, good or bad by replacing them with whether or not our needs are met, and whether or not it is in harmony with them. In practice this should be done in a way that does not stimulate or provoke guilt or shame in children.
“I’m afraid when I see you hit your little brother, because I have the need for the family to be a safe place”, instead of, “Hitting your little brother is bad, you are a coward.” Or instead of, “You have not cleaned up your room, you are lazy”, say, “I feel frustrated when I notice that you did not make your bed, I need everyone to help keep the house clean and tidy”.
Unconditional love
But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father – the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. Matthew 23:8-10
Autocratic authority has no place in NVC or in the new world that Jesus came to inaugurate. We are all brothers and sisters in fact and what counts is the moral authority with which we perform a service in the community. All services are important to community life, the performance of a task, a service, it does not give us any power over others. The only authority is God who is the Father of all. Therefore the father has no authority over the children nor the masters over the disciples.
This dialogue only works when we gain moral authority over the children, in the sense that we are with them when they need us; many parents, on the other hand, only make themselves available or visible when it is the time for punishment.
A child may one day come home and vent, “Nobody likes me”; the temptation is to deny what is true, or to give advice; in these moments the most important thing is the empathic silence that in practice can be translated into a look or gesture of support. Only later are questions asked to help the child find his own answers.
Love is unconditional and it is certain that, theoretically, all parents unconditionally love their children. In everyday life, however, what they actually communicate in behaviour and body language is precisely the opposite, because they express sadness and anger when their children do not behave as they would wish and joy when they do what the parents want. In this way, what the children learn is the conditionality of their parents’ love in such a way that they can even end up doing things that they do not want for themselves, in order to obtain this love in the form of approval.
The use of the language of nonviolence reduces conflicts within the family as well as sibling rivalry, because it replaces the struggle for power with cooperation and trust. For this to happen, parents should promote their children’s emotional development and self-esteem, as well as protect and nurture their autonomy. This can be done by expressing frustration when they do not do what is for the good of all, instead of judging and blaming them, and make clear, concrete and doable requests, and find out and listen to the needs behind the “no” answer.
When a child says or does something that is not to our liking
It is not uncommon, but happens very often that a child says or does something less positive. It is at this moment that we take a deep breath and manage the situation within the parameters of NVC. It can be very difficult and takes time in the beginning because in the moments of crisis, the clearest thing is that our reptilian brain takes control of us, and for us to connect to the neocortex we must give time to disconnect from our reptilian brain, and observe without judging even inside of our mind. We have four options:
- Blame ourselves – I am a bad father or mother, it is my fault that my son or daughter is this way
- Blame the child – He is selfish. Rude and good for nothing etc.…
- Connect with our feelings and needs – I feel disillusioned, I need recognition for the effort I made
- Discover their feelings and needs – Do you feel reluctant because you want to be free to make your own choices?
The goal is that whatever the children do, it is because they themselves choose to do it and do it for the pleasure of knowing that they are contributing to making life more wonderful for themselves and for others, because it meets their and others’ needs. In this way, a request may sound more or less like this: “I would like you to do this, it would meet my need, but if in case your needs conflict with this, I would like to know, so that we both can find the best way to meet both of our needs.”
The jackal schools
For a violent society to remain as such, it needs to have schools where violence is learned and is part of the curriculum. It is not just that the school’s administrators turn a blind eye at bullying, and that they only act when the consequences are catastrophic or when it is too late and the victim has committed suicide. Institutional violence is also exercised over the children in the following ways:
- Teach the children to obey the authority unconditionally and uncritically; so that later on when they are hired for a job they do what they are told without questioning.
- Train the children to work for an external reward. The school is not interested in children learning to enrich their lives and the lives of others, but to strive to get high grades, whether they like what they are studying or not, because these will translate into high paying jobs for them in the future.
- Maintain social inequalities and a system of classes or castes making it look like a democracy.
Schools in which parents and teachers relate as partners – where the Nonviolent Communication is part of each interaction – are learning communities, and not impersonal factories from top to bottom. (Riane Eisler in Tomorrow’s Children: A Blueprint for Partnership Education in the 21st Century)
In his many travels, in 50 countries, Rosenberg helped to create this type of schools, where the relationships among teachers, students and the rest of the educational staff are modeled on Nonviolent Communication.
The children have an active role in the educational process – In this way, Rosenberg draws from the ancient Socratic process of maieutic, from non-directive psychotherapy of Carl Rogers and from the experiences of the Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire. The other, whether adult or child, is not an empty bag that I am going to fill with knowledge. The students, the teachers, the parents and the rest of the educators learn together, from each other because everyone has something to learn from others and something to teach others.
The motivation is internal, autonomous not coercive – The motivation for whatever the children do comes out of themselves, it is not imposed from outside by negative coercive means such as punishments and reprimands, nor positive ones such as prizes and rewards. The autonomy of the children is a respected value in giraffe schools, but they do not affirm autonomy disconnected from interdependence. The truth is that we are as autonomous as we are interdependent; one value cannot be affirmed to the detriment of the other. The students are motivated by values, needs and desires intrinsic to themselves, not imposed or suggested from the outside.
Self-discipline replaces discipline rooted in obedience motivated by fear of punishment – In these schools, children are not disciplined, but self-disciplined because they are convinced of the value of discipline so that it is not imposed from outside, but desired and adopted from within. The school’s rules of operation are discussed and agreed upon by all who are affected by them.
Children respect authority rather than fear it – Authority is not autocratic or even democratic, but it is above all a moral authority that conquers the children’s hearts through empathy and compassion; in this way there is a mutual respect and understanding between teachers and students, and collaboration at all levels.
Children in a giraffe school learn to express themselves with their classmates and teachers in a positive way, avoiding evaluations, prejudices, comparisons and criticisms. They express their feelings when something goes wrong and learn to try to describe those feelings. They then ask others, be them parents, classmates or teachers, how they would like them to act, formulating these requests in a positive and clear way. Finally, they are taught to take responsibility for their own actions and decisions.
For Rosenberg, what is important for the children’s future is not only learning the curriculum, getting good grades, and having academic success in general. The relationships that a child establishes with the teachers and peers are part of the learning and are equally important for a successful life in the future. Schools should prepare for life in all its aspects and not only for the exercise of a profession. If a child learns to resolve conflicts in the form of Nonviolent Communication, then he is being prepared not only for a professional life, but also for life period.
The important thing is not only the end of a trip, the graduation day, but also the process that led there, the accomplished relationships and the way they were lived, the conflicts experienced and resolved, the way all this was learned is part of the baggage that the child takes with him or her in life and not just a paper, a diploma.
Children resolve their own conflicts – Some schools have in the classrooms a place called the mediation corner; when a conflict arises between two students, a third mediates between the two in conflict using the nonviolent conflict resolution technique.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC
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