Non-Violent Resistance by Haim Omer. Has anyone read this???

[Swanhildapirouetting]

A friend was recommended this to deal with her 13 year old's violent rages. I've read it, just out of interest, as a counter to The Explosive Child.
He also talks about dealing with OCD children and self-imurement.
He seems to discount all "pathologies" ie: autism, or OCD and say that it is the family dynamics (specifically parental authority) that needs to be sorted.

Any thoughts? I've been thinking a lot of about control issues, child trying to control me, me trying to control child and how it all stacks up.

On the whole it seems an excellent book, promoting reconciliation, security, ending violent attacks on family members, shouting screaming, preaching, escalation...but I just wondered whether there is something flawed about his approach to child's intrinsic reasons for being violent etc. He is anti a pyschotherapeutic approach to individual child and focuses on parent more.

presumably most pyschotherapeutic approaches to autism are somewhat flawed. Anyway I hear you zzz.

I posted in the SN board because I was interested to know what you all made of it, and also because ds2 is only 11, (as is dd) I was thinking about the future.

A whole range of conditions from schizophrenia to untreated diabetes right through to abuse can cause violent outbursts in children. Parenting is only one of a massive range of factors. Autism is only one of them. in NT children, reaction to bullying at school is often one of the most common causes.

You need to identify the cause before you can identify the therapy, pyschotherapeutic therapies, being just one of a possible cornucopia of potential solutions.

poisoned carrots indeed.

Surely every parent with a shred of common sense and affection for their children, (SNs or not) already knows that children need plenty of positive attention, and if the only attention they receive is when they get angry there will be big problems? Surely you don't need an academic theory to tell you that?

I can't really understand the extent of the antipathy towards this actually . I haven't read the book, but what swanhilda has said seems to make some sense to me. I know when my ds was younger and had outbursts (he has never been what you'd call violent, or had meltdowns as such), how we responded to it made a huge difference. We analysed as much as possible what the triggers were - in his case, he was controlling, but it was more than anything because of difficulties in communication and extremely rigid thinking - we then went about finding ways of teaching him alternatives by addressing those deficits. I never felt he had those difficulties because of our parenting, but that doesn't mean that this couldn't be addressed by how we responded to him.

Though the stuff about this writer's approach to "intrinsic reasons for being violent" does sound rather, um, dubious.

But is he really saying that violence is really because of the parents? if so.

Yes, he is. Not directly - he says he is not about laying blame, but the blame is implicit in everything he says. bialystock's intelligent strategy of identifying triggers and teaching alternatives routes runs counter to NVR theory (because from that standpoint that would be seeking to control the child whereas he says what you must do is resist their oppression with techniques like the sit-in, which is essentially forcing your way into their bedroom and sitting there for an hour demanding they come up with an alternative strategy while you are completely passive]

Quite a few of the keys on my keyboard don't work. That is why I always close my brackets with a square bracket. The curved one doesn't work. Just in case anyone wondered!

Quite, zzzzz. I often end up stood in a doorway, keeping the boys apart when DS1 is in a violent rage. I'm keeping half an eye on DS1 to make sure he doesn't do anything dangerous but most of my attention is on DS2 because he finds his brother's rages upsetting and his yelling can further enrage him. Doing the best I can to achieve calm on both sides isn't easy, but the instinct is hardly rocket science. There's no quasi-psychological thinking behind it and it's certainly nothing to do with resisting attempts at control.

On page thirty Haim says parents must persist with the course of NVR even when children are threatening suicide. Apparently suicide is very rare and this is almost certainly a strategy to control parents and must be treated as such. Parents must not be deterred by cries of suicidal intent from forcing their way into their child’s bedroom and staging a sit-in. He says the parents must phone around friends and family and let them know what your child has been saying about suicide, so they can all phone up your child and tell them it is not acceptable to try to control their parents in this way.

He describes a family in which an adolescent girl with violent rages kept threatening suicide. He says that after she was treated to the ‘sit-in’ and family phone-in she came out of her room grinning, then playfully said ‘I’m gonna kill you dad’, and then everything was much better.

The thought of people taking this seriously and applying it to their family really worries me. Anyone else?

That's quite horrifying, Julia :(

Julia - that's VERY dangerous! A tragedy in the making.

The author needs prosecuting.

There's more:

On page 139 (of the book], Haim says the bizarre behaviours we see in children diagnosed with OCD do not necessarily reflect a deeper kind of pathology, but instead they are the result of the child shutting themselves away in their bedroom too much. He says: ”in the absence of social contacts, there is a gradual loss of the need to adjust oneself to accepted norms, so that the obsessive-compulsive tendencies may flourish without restraint.”

He then goes on the describe two ‘case studies’:

A 16yo boy gradually dropped out of all social contact and spent his days recording, sorting and arranging video tapes in his room. For this purpose he needed exactly 30 new video tapes each week.

A girl had compulsive tendencies about food. She stopped talking to her family. She avoided eye contact at work but did her job well. She abandoned all social contact an spent her spare time in her room, and then all her time after she quit her job.

Is it just me or do these two people scream out possible Aspergers/HFA? In desperate need of understanding and help from professionals? But Haim says there is no underlying pathology. Indeed you are right, Swanhildapirouetting, he doesn’t mention autism. According to his arguments they are children who simply want to control everything and have spent too much time on their own. The solution is for the parents to resist with passive presence/non violent resistance.

But presumably if you leave them alone, whether they have ASD or any other issue which would lead to suicidal thoughts, they are more likely to feel isolated and suicidal? Surely you do have to try and show them you are near and care about them, and that everyone else in the wider circle cares about them? He talks a lot about how in the West we put an enormous premium on privacy and the individual, yet we need other people to be part of our child's lives, and support them and us, and how do you give a child that message except by reminding them that of the wider circle. It is not about threatening the child, or making them guilty that everyone will know how terrible their behaviour is, just reminding them that everyone cares about them. Btw I have a family member that did try and commit suicide, due to self-isolation as a teen, and he certainly didn't threaten it before hand. I think it made an enormous difference to him afterwards that so many family members came forward and acknowledged him and told him how important he was to them, and he certainly never found himself in that position again, despite repeated episodes of depression. I think if you have ASD you are prone to low self esteem which is compounded by isolation, yet you find it extremely difficult to break the cycle of isolation.

The man is talking about very violent and out of control children whose parents have tried other avenues of intervention. I'm not saying that ASD children are even like that, or that if some other intervention works much better it shouldn't be preferred. But what I found "mindful" for want of another word, is that that he is saying that words sometimes don't work, and parental presence can be defined in actions alone. Sitting in the room. Ringing up friends and asking them to come round.

I don't think his tone is at all sympathetic. I think he is very dogmatic but you cannot actually harm someone by sitting in their room can you? Or asking their aunty to ring them up and tell them they are on their side?

I think whether those two examples Julia had OCD or HFA, the fact remained that someone needed to get them out of their rooms. It is a bit like saying that just because someone has HFA and is also clinically depressed you make no effort to break their isolation and communicate with them, because they choose to be alone and don't want to speak to anyone. We are talking about teenagers or younger here. Surely you have to DO something, even if they don't want you in their room. And if talking to them is impossible, why not just sit there briefly? (an hour is quite brief)

That is not the choice: leave them alone vs passive resistance!

There are so many other reputable strategies that are based on intensive and extensive intervention and support, that are based on parental and professional presence - but where the presence is about actually doing something useful to help them rather than just demanding the children in turmoil comes up with their own solutions.

You do harm someone by sitting on your ass instead of helping when they are going through a crisis.

It seems clear that the man is talking about violent and out of control children that clearly have underlying conditions or issues that have not been diagnosed and addressed - therefore they are not children whose parents have tried alternative suitable interventions.

I don't know, swanhilda - after a long day out in public, I can't wait for some significant alone time. If I had that need and a husband who insisted on following me into the study, or bathroom, or wherever I'd sought low stimulus refuge, other people would be crying out emotional abuse.

If either of the boys takes off to their room, I check that they're occupying themselves safely and, if they are, back off and might just periodically stick my head around the door. I respect their need for a little privacy and solitude and only sit with them if they are unsafe (eg, DS2 went through a phase of trying to climb onto the wardrobe or get to the ceiling light to play with it).

The two teens given as examples probably needed more than reassurance that others cared about them. That's a bit like sticking plaster on a severed finger. Such reassurance wouldn't do any harm, unless it felt intrusive but it doesn't address the underlying thought processes and instincts that led to the isolation. If part of that thought process is a sense that people are annoying, then people being annoying is going to be far from helpful.

I suppose the value of the Non Violent Resistance approach is that for families that turn to it as an alternative to responding violently to their children they are most likely going to see an improvement. But there are lots of therapies and strategies out there, like ABA, CBT, social stories, visualization techniques, sensory diets, music therapy (I’m just a beginner – there must many more] that start with parental presence, but where the parental presence is just a starting point. Probably these approaches would have more chance of reaching the child without having to forcefully intrude on their privacy and personal space, making them feel trapped and smothered. Maybe then there would be more chance of a relationship based on trust and cooperation developing. I agree with Polter and Ouryve alone time is important.