NVR Factsheet 3

Non Violent Resistance Programme

Parental Presence

Parental Presence has two parts - a parent's physical presence and a parent's presence in their child's mind. Parental Presence can also be thought of as parental influence not parental control (authoritarian) and not parental permissiveness (laissez faire), but in the centre ground of the parenting line (parenting styles). This is the difficult stance of managing both warm and firm presence at the same time, whilst avoiding extremes.

The Parent Line

A diagram shows a horizontal line with arrows at each end, which goes across a large circle that sits at the centre of the line. Next to the arrow at the left is Anything Goes - permissive. Next to the arrow at the right is Super-Strict - authoritarian. A caption states 'The bubble in the centre ground of the parenting line indicates the middle ground and optimum area for high parental presence.'

Inside the circle is the Higher Parental Presence Area. An image of weighing scales is shown to demonstrate the balance of warm and firm. The left pan has warm and friendly in and the right pan has demanding and firm in it.

Increased Parental Presence

Routine contact with children is one of the main ways of increasing parental presence. Alongside more frequent contact there may also be a higher risk of conflict. Parent and carers are guided towards the use of Reconciliation Gestures to help re-connect with their child and lower the possibility of escalation.

Parental Presence and temperament

For example, children with more easy-going temperaments are usually easier to praise and more enjoyable to be around. Children with more intense, sensitive and strong willed temperaments are usually more prone to non-cooperation or defiance. Trying to control young people through either rewards or consequences usually fails. Increasing a positive parental presence using Reconciliation Gestures and Acts of Resistance helps to regain control over oneself, and in turn, eventually more cooperation from the child.

Parental Presence and attachment

In NVR, we talk of the 'anchoring function' of parents and carers. In this model, parents offer sensitive care (as informed by attachment theory) and also authoritative care. A useful analogy is a ship’s anchor that prevents a boat from becoming lost or shipwrecked in choppy or stormy weather (See Omer, 2017:19).

What to expect

The concept of Parental Presence can feel confusing to start with. As you become familiar with and start using the NVR tools, your sense of Parental Presence will grow. As you start to re-connect with your child and gradually gain more influence over your parental reactions, you will know that your parental presence has returned.
As you stay calmer, using the ‘cold iron’ approach, you (gradually) begin to feel more confident in testing situations, and more ‘present’ in your child’s world. Over time, you should also see changes in the child / young person, often subtle at first, that indicates your parental presence has returned. For example, times when cooperation has taken place, albeit in an uneven way, where there was previously little or none before.

Table Showing Levels of Parental Presence

'Out of sight, out of mind' - Lower parental presence

'Out of sight, held in mind' - Higher parental presence

'In sight, out of mind' - Lower parental presence

'In sight, held in mind' - Higher parental presence

Why is regular contact so important for increased parental presence?

Daily contacts builds connections (provided the parent works with de-escalation and reconciliation gestures).
Daily interactions often help to gain more knowledge about the child as well as strengthening the parent’s presence in the child’s mind.
Over time, parents are likely to have more influence over a connected child, rather than a disconnected child (connection before correction).

Some conditions for losing parental presence

Escalation between parent and child.
Isolation, fear and parental shame.
Parents not working together
Parents and school not working together
Feeling overly guilty about past or current issues.
Too much compassion for child’s feelings to the extent that a firmer stance can be compromised.
Ongoing pattern of holding firm followed by giving in, holding firm, giving in and so on.

Signs of lowered Parental Presence

Parental Presence does not mean being around the young person all of the time. It means that your child is aware of you as a parent at home, in school, and when they are with their peers. It also means that you are aware of your child’s activities, including their screen use and screen time.

Some examples of low parental presence.

You do not know who your child’s friends are or what they are up to.
Your child does not feel they need to let you know when they will be home at night.
You have no control over how loud your child plays their music in the house.
Your child blanks you whenever you try to speak to them.
You feel exhausted, low or without support from other adults in dealing with your child.

Source: Peter Jakob, Partnership Projects.

Links to other NVR ideas

De-escalation

High escalation = low parental presence. Low escalation is a prerequisite for increased parental presence.

Reconciliation Gestures

are ways of connecting to our children and they are excellent at increasing our parental presence. With regular connection using the four types of RG’s – quality time, reflective listening, connecting comments and connecting actions - children are more likely to hold our values in mind. (See factsheet 5).

Self Care

is not optional, but vital, to help prevent parental burnout. Dealing with difficult issues can take
its toll, and if you have more energy, then your parental presence will be higher as you will be able to
think more clearly.

Supporters

may help to make more transparent the child's challenging behaviours that have often been shrouded in secrecy. The aim is to support parental presence to manage risk situations with helpful texts
or messages from relatives which can be part of ‘campaigns of concern’. A further important aspect is
support to help improve parent – teacher communication.

Active Resistance (AR)

This is the firmer stance of NVR. Routine daily contacts with children may increase
parental presence and broaden vigilant care. Acts of Resistance are a vital component of NVR and help
address issues (for example, using short, succinct comments given at neutral times. See Factsheet 6).

Announcements

These written statements help both the child and the parent to reflect on issues. Each carefully pre-planned written statement is designed to increase the presence of the parent in the child's mind.

Sit-ins

Parental Presence is shown robustly during traditional sit-ins, and also just as robustly during quieter connecting sit-ins that shows active parental presence persistently shown over time. These may also lead to recovering conversations (see factsheet 9).

Siblings

All NVR tools should also be used regularly with
siblings. Connections with other children can often be compromised when a particular child needs a high level of vigilant care.

Professional Presence

In work situations, we may think of Professional Presence. How much influence can we exert over our work environment using NVR concepts? Although our positioning is usually a subordinate one, we may still have some influence adapting the NVR toolkit and sometimes employing a stance of ‘positive delinquency’ (See Brown, 2020, in press).