9/20/14-LLL Session 3 - Love Through Conversation

1. Conversation is important
1. As Neitzche said "Love is a long conversation"
2. Questions
1. What is it about conversations that make a child, or any of us, feel loved?
2. The cycle of emotional closeness
1. See graphic on pg 57
2. Essentially Emotional Closeness leads to Self-Disclosure, which leads to Vulnerability, which leads to Validation, which takes us back to Emotional Closeness.
1. The first building block of conversation is self-disclosure
3. Questions
1. When people talk about "self-disclosure," what do they mean?
1. It's when people talk about what is going on for them - not just the events that took place, but the feelings as well.
2. Why does sharing feelings with others (self-disclosing) make people feel vulnerable?
1. Sharing your inner thoughts and feelings with someone is risky because the other person might not share your feelings, might laugh at you, ignore you, criticize you, or become angry with you.  When someone self-discloses to you you need to realize that vulnerability that comes with that.
3. When people talk about validation, what do they mean?
1. Validation is the skill of helping your child feel understood and valued for who they are.  When parents validate a child, they create a safe place for self-disclosure.
2. Emotional closeness comes when you have created a place where the child feels close to you and wants to continue talking to you.  By being understanding, you are creating a safe place in their lives here they can come to you and share feelings and ideas and be loved for who they are.  This is emotional closeness.
4. Can you think of times you tried to tell something important to someone who was not understand and afterward you distanced yourself from him or her?
5. How about times you told something important to someone, felt understood, and then felt closer to that person?
6. Have you seen any evidence of the cycle described above in your relationships with your children?
3. How to converse with your child: The art of validation (Adapted from Gottman's 1997 book, Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child:  The Heart of Parenting)
1. Step #1:  Be aware of your child's emotions
1. How does your child act when they are upset?  When something is on their mind?
2. Can any of you think of an example of when you were able to tell your children were upset from what they did rather than what they said?
3. Have you ever been able to tell what was bothering your children through their play?
4. Have you ever been able to tell what was bothering your child through appetite or sleeping changes, or through other physical symptoms, like stomachaches?
2. Step #2:  Recognizing the emotion as an opportunity for intimacy
1. Can someone share an example of a time that helping your child through a crisis brought you closer to him or her?  It simply is "the stuff" of building close relationships
3. Step #3:  Listening empathetically and validating your child's feelings
1. Pretty self-explanatory
4. Step #4:  Help your child verbally label emotions
1. Also pretty self-explanatory
4. Putting it all Together:  Practicing validation and labeling feelings
1. This is where you role-play with the parents in the group and have them work through a conversation with their "child" where they go through each of those steps.
5. What validation is not
1. It isn't logic.  
1. You aren't trying to gather up all of the facts so you can fix the problem.  You're being present and helping them feel understood.
2. It isn't an argument or criticism
1. You might not agree with the child's assessment of the situation.  Don't argue about feelings.  You don't have to agree with your child to be able to validate him or her.
3. It isn't problem-solving
1. Pretty self-explanatory
4. It isn't an inquisition
1. Gottman says that sharing simple observations usually works better than probing questions to get a conversation rolling.  Children may not know why they feel sad or upset and too many questions often make them (or anyone) feel defensive.