On February 1st we celebrated ways to return from misinterpretations, hurt feelings and the fear of hurting feelings at Pragmatics Night. Facilitated by Melinda (Theo P.’s mom, EW) and Rasheda (Josephine’s mom, EW) and NSW teachers, Adriana, Amy, Cindy, Susan, Silvana, Flora and Roleen and Kris. We dug deep and shared our worst moments – those we stumbled ourselves into and those our children innocently thrust us into. We talked about how those feelings left us after years or merely days and what would work to be at peace with them and be prepared for the next ones.
Some key concepts to attune to are:
- It’s ok to disagree – not ok to blame or shame your self or others
- Be aware of the intent and impact of words.
- Practice self-focus
- Maintain confidentiality
- Notice process and content
- Lean into discomfort and take risks
- Approach listening with a beginner’s mind
- it’s ok to save conversations for a more appropriate time but return to them.
What can we actually say to children, when they verbalize differences, that there are patterns in life, but these patterns are not rules. For example, a lot of men have short hair but some men have long hair. A lot of families have two parents and some have one. It’s a statement of normalizing differences but not erasing or dismissing them.
As you can imagine, there was not enough time for the kind of work we all wanted to do on this. In response, Rasheda and Melinda are willing to do a second night to invite more conversation. Stay tuned!
