Best Self Family Post
Diffusing Conflict with Empathy
1/15/19
You are standing in the doorway of your teen’s bedroom and notice them raising their voice. You already know where this is going- a screaming match that ends with slammed doors and both of you angry. What is the key ingredient to de-escalating conflict with your teen?
What is Empathy?
Empathy involves understanding another person’s feelings, perspective and experience. When you empathize with someone, it does not mean you agree with them or that they are right and you are wrong. Two people can go through the same situation but have different thoughts, feelings and reactions to that situation. Empathy is the ability to put yourself in their shoes and understand where they are coming from. Empathy is not the same thing as sympathy. Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone else and what they are going through but not necessarily emotionally understanding their experience.
What is the Benefit to Empathy?
Empathy helps an individual feel heard and understood. It builds connection, respect and trust between people. One of the challenges of parenting a teenager is keeping the lines of communication open and remaining connected to them, while they become more independent and move into adulthood. Empathy is an important tool that helps parents achieve those goals and also de-escalates conflictual situations. Often times, people argue because they are struggling to get their viewpoint across to the other person. If they feel they are not being understood, they up the ante by getting angrier, louder, and maybe even aggressive. This is especially the case for teens who may do anything to feel heard and understood. As a parent, responding to your teen when they are in distress with empathy will help calm them down. This is essential, if you want to have a productive conversation next.
What Does Empathy Look Like?
When practicing empathy, it is important to incorporate both verbal and nonverbal behaviors. Adjusting your nonverbals shows your teen that you are not a threat to them which in turn calms them down and invites healthier expression.
First, physically back off and give your teen some space. Relax your body and lower your posture, to be less intimidating. This may mean sitting down while your teen is standing up or slouching your shoulders a little bit. Uncross your arms and keep your palms flat. Listen with your undivided attention (turn off or put away anything distracting). This does not mean staring your teen down and trying to make eye contact consistently throughout the conversation. Be sure to break up the eye contact, which in turn, lessens the perceived threat. Finally, try to regulate your own emotions by remaining calm and modeling for your teen what that looks like. Your teen will feed off of your own emotions, so it is important to remain as neutral as possible.
You can start by using one of these 3 stems:
“You sound…”
“You seem….”
“You look…”
Then follow the stem with a feeling word. These feelings words can be as simple as mad, sad or worried or a bit more complex like terrified, ashamed, furious or embarrassed. It is helpful to grow your own feelings vocabulary and increase your awareness of what different emotions look/feel like. The more you, as a parent, are able to understand and identify these, the more accurate you will be in guessing their feelings while empathizing. If you don’t, that’s ok, as long as you are genuine it will still get the point across.
You can also utilize mirroring stems, such as:
“Sounds like you feel as though…”
“So in other words…”
“So what you’re saying is….”
“So what I’m hearing is that….”
Examples of statements that are reframed and reflected with empathy:
“I don’t belong in this family”——> “You seem like you are feeling unloved”
“You love Joey more than me”——–> “It sounds like you feel like we are unfair”
“I hate you”——-> “You seem like you are furious with me”
“I am going to fail this test”——–> “You sound really worried. I bet you can’t wait till it is over”
You can also reflect back their fantasies and wishes. For example, “It sounds like you wish things were different.” Also, try to not reflect back exactly what your teen stated. For example, if your teen says “I am furious”, try not to say “You seem furious” but maybe say “This must be really difficult for you.” It can be helpful to try and role play this with another adult before trying it out on your teen. The more you practice, the easier this will come and the more confident you will feel doing it in the moment. List a bunch of different statements your teen has made in the past and come up with ways to reflect those back using empathy. Ultimately, the goal of empathy is to de-escalate the situation and build a connection and trust with your teen. Once they are calm, you can move onto processing the situation and problem solving.
References
Nord-Cook, M. (2018, November). Out of control teens: A skills based approach that breaks through family dysfunction to create lasting change. Presented at the Renaissance Chicago North Shore Hotel through PESI, Northbrook, IL.